Tigers coach Tom Watkins insisted his men must take valuable lessons from Saturday night’s 6-0 defeat to Hull Pirates.
The county men struggled to recover from two early Pirates goals at the Hull Arena, as they tumbled to their heaviest loss of the season.
They still lead the English Premier League by a single point from Milton Keynes, however, ahead of Sunday’s trip to Guildford.
But with Hull having now closed the gap in third place, Watkins will seek an immediate return to form when they travel to Surrey.
He said: “Hull capitalised on a ton of our mistakes tonight and a lot of those goals came on the back of a long shift.
“It was unacceptable, disappointing, but we need to learn from it and hopefully our fans will have a safe trip home tonight.
“It was one of those nights that you have to hope doesn’t happen too often, but you don’t forget about it.
“You remember, you use it, and I am sure we will play a far better game when we go to Guildford tomorrow night.”
Telford found themselves on the back foot almost straight away on Saturday, as Hull took the lead after just 20 seconds of the first period.
The Tigers had the better of the early chances, but they slipped further behind with a second Pirates strike on eight minutes.
Watkins added: “From those two early goals we lost our way in the fact that we were trying to push and gave up odd-man rushes.
“It felt like every decent puck that broke landed on one of their sticks and we forgot about the process that we try to instill every night.
“At 2-0 I still think we had a lot of good opportunities to score and we kept on pushing, but didn’t take them.”
The second session saw Telford concede a third goal on 25 minutes, despite putting the Hull defence under heavy pressure.
A fourth Pirates strike at the halfway point of the game led to a change of netminder for the Tigers, as Sam Gospel replaced Ondrej Raszka.
But the youngster was unable to prevent his side going 5-0 behind before the end of the period.
“You can’t give up about twelve odd-man rushes in a game and expect to win,” Watkins said.
“Normally, we restrict that to three. We were forcing a lot of pucks and we got beat out of their zone quite quickly.
“Pucks went past forwards, we made bad changes on our back checks and gave up the house on the first goal. You just can’t do that.
“I would have liked to see us be a lot chippier. A team played physical and aggressive with us, and we didn’t get to grips with that.”
Telford were handed a number of powerplay chances late in the game, but a sixth Hull goal on 42 minutes ended any unlikely hopes of a late comeback.
Watkins said: “Guildford is of course another big two points on the board, so we can’t get too hung up on this tonight.
“It is a long trip back to Telford, so we’ll mull it over, put it to bed and get back at it tomorrow.
“That is the beauty of hockey. You get another opportunity tomorrow night.”
Sunday night’s clash with Guildford Flames, at the Spectrum in Surrey, faces off at 6pm.
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