NEW ULM — Monday in practice, New Ulm Steel head coach Alex North was stressing defensive play after their 5-3 loss to St. Louis Saturday in which the Jr. Blues fired 19 shots on goal and scored four goals.

That followed a 6-5 Steel win on Friday that saw St. Louis score two goals in the span of 14 seconds to open the third period.

“When they get some momentum, they pour it on and we were slow to react to that,” North said. “We did not quite prepare for that.”

North said that the defensive breakdowns were caused by players following the puck on the ice and not watching for the players without the puck.

“When that player shoots and there is a rebound or a pass, a lot of times that player is standing wide open,” North said. “It is hard for our goalie to stop those. There is a little bit of playing ones position but a lot of it is just awareness — being aware of where the other players are on the ice.”

North does play a zone defense rather than man because that is where a lot of confusion can creep in.

“But as long as we are passing guys off to each other and staying out of each other’s way, that is the best defense.”

North said that playing on the bigger Olympic sheet of ice did not factor into the drop in defensive play.

“I think got us it has been an advantage,” he said. “We are a very fast team, so when we get moving up and down the ice it is hard for teams to stay with us. That is what happened to Mason (City) the first game here (a 5-2 Steel win) where they were not ready for it and we out-skated them.”

North said the Steel players, who are prepping for a road weekend series against the Minnesota Loons in Breezy Point this Friday and Saturday, were a little nervous before the start of practice Monday morning.

“They thought it was going to be a no-puck practice, but that is not the way I am as a coach,” he said. “We did get some stuff done — it was not a great practice because I knew that they were thinking about it — but it was a hard-working practice and the players did pretty well.

“The players knew the mistakes they made this weekend and there were some mistakes that I made as a coach that I need to be better at too. We will make sure we don’t do them again.”

North said that the games this weekend in Breezy Point will be a battle.

“We will be prepared for them,” he said. “They picked up a couple of players that have been producing for them already.”

North did say that he is very happy with his team’s offense seven games into the season.

“It has been a nice welcome change from last year in that we are actually scoring goals,” he said. “We just have to do a better job of keeping the other teams out of our net.”

The Steel are 2-3 and in third place in the West, while the Loons come in at 2-6, fifth place in the West.