Britain’s men’s ice hockey head coach Doug Christiansen was left ruing a lack of sharp shooting in front of goal as they fell to a 4-0 defeat to Croatia in their opening game of the World Championships in Lithuania.
Having suffered relegation from Division One A last year, Great Britain men’s team are looking to bounce straight back out of Division One B in Vilnius.
But despite outshooting Croatia by nearly two to one, they could not find a way past netminder Mate Tomljenovic, who secured a 33-shot shootout.
Instead it was Croatia who took their chances, with Mario Novak opening the scoring in the first period before captain Dario Kostovic found the net twice either side of a second-period strike from Alan Letang.
Great Britain get a chance to make amends with their second game against Romania on Monday morning and Christiansen knows they need to take their chances better.
“I am very disappointed with the outcome but I tip my hat to Croatia. They were outstanding and buried their chances,” he said.
"In the first and second periods, we had a lot of opportunities and got pucks to the net, but we did not win battles at the net.
"It seemed as though when they went down the ice it ended up in the back of our net.
"We have got to pick ourselves up tomorrow. We have got to be better than we were today."
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