It was a tough weekend of hockey for the Florida Everblades, dropping two straight games to divisional rival Charlotte at Germain Arena.

The Everblades’ problems are easy to identify – goal scoring.

With a total of nine forwards missing due to call-ups and/or injuries, to say that the Everblades are missing some firepower right now is an understatement. It’s not as if they didn’t have their chances to score.

Saturday night they fired a total of 26 shots on net in the second period, including eight quality scoring chances, but getting the puck into the net has been another issue entirely. The frustration, after only scoring one goal over the weekend is starting to show.

“I’m frustrated, (team president) Craig Brush is frustrated, the team is frustrated, the fans are frustrated, everybody is frustrated,” Blades coach Malcolm Cameron said after Saturday night’s 3-0 loss to the Checkers.

“It’s hard,” said team captain Kevin Baker, who scored more than 100 points last season en route to setting a Blades record for goals and receiving the league’s MVP award. “It’s one of those things where I know I’m not playing the best that I can and I know a lot of guys can say that. That is what we are trying to figure out.”

Not helping the offensive woes this past weekend were their starts.

In Friday night’s contest they spotted the Checkers a two-goal lead in the first period, and were worse Saturday in giving up three goals in the opening frame.

For any team as offensively depleted as the Blades, bad starts are a precursor to disaster.

“That’s one thing we can’t do – have bad starts like that,” said Cameron. “We can’t expect to be able to come back from so far behind every night when you have as much firepower out of the lineup right now as we do.”

To compensate, says Cameron, the team must learn to play a full 60 minutes of hockey. In his assessment, they played a great second and third period, but it was the first period in both games that cost them two important divisional games at home.

His team captain agrees.

“Our bad starts are definitely what is killing us,” said Baker, “but we are trying to figure it out. Coming from behind 3-0 in games is tough to do and in the long haul it’s never going to work.”

Neither Cameron nor Baker has given up on the team, and as Cameron noted Saturday night, “Last year, Johnstown was first in the league at Christmas, and ended up missing the playoffs. The year Trenton beat us in the Kelly Cup finals, they weren’t in the playoffs at Christmas. It’s a long season, and we are going to go through stretches like this.”

Fans and the team alike hope this current stretch is short-lived.

The Blades skate in three more home games this week at Germain Arena, beginning Wednesday night against the Wheeling Nailers.