Assistant coach Lewis Jones says Raiders want a maximum return from their away double-header at Solway and Telford this weekend.

Raiders make the trip north of the border on Saturday to face the Sharks, before visiting the Tigers the following night.

And with National League and Cup points up for grabs, they are hoping to keep their bid for silverware alive.

"We want to be a team that is in the conversation for the trophies this season," said Jones.

"We’ve shown in the early part of the season that we can compete with anyone in this league.

"The league is wide open this year with everyone seemingly able to beat everyone.

"In order for us to be up there we need to be targeting four points this weekend if we want to progress beyond the initial phase and into the knockout round.

"It’s certainly not going to be easy with the long bus trip on Saturday and being away from home both nights, but we know that if we want to win something these are the things we’ve got to overcome to get there."

Raiders go into battle after suffering successive losses last weekend for the first time in 2024-25.

Jake Sylvester's early shorthanded goal put them in front against Leeds at Romford's Sapphire Ice & Leisure Centre, with a powerplay goal from Shaun Miller making it 2-1 early in the final period.

But Knights levelled in the 52nd minute and struck two late goals to skate off 4-2 winners.

"We gave a huge effort against Leeds. We’ve had a great start to the season and games like that give us a chance to measure ourselves against the league’s best," added Jones.

"We battled hard but we stepped off when we took the lead twice in the game rather than pressing on that advantage.

"Ethan [James] gave us a chance to win the game with another unreal performance. It’s heartbreaking to lose the game late in the third period in the manner that we did, and it taught us we need to manage the game a lot better in order to convert a lead like that into two points."

Raiders handed Thomas Brown his first start in goal at Peterborough the following night, with goals from Miller and fellow Canadian Andrew Shewfelt seeing them in the hunt at the halfway stage.

But Phantoms netted three times in just over three minutes for a 6-2 lead at the second break and struck again at the start of the final session.

Sylvester and Shewfelt replied late on, as Raiders fell to a 7-4 loss, with Jones adding: "It was important for us to give Ethan a night off. It’s key that we manage his workload and don’t burn him out and we’ve given up too many shots on him in the last few games.

"It was a frustrating night on Sunday where we never really got going and played some of our worst hockey we’ve played this season.

"We didn’t manage the puck well, were loose defensively and it showed on the scoreboard. It’s a tough place to play but the conditions are the same for both teams so we can’t use that as an excuse as to why we struggled.

"We are young team and we are going to have some bad nights but we can’t dwell on it for too long. We will work to put that right this week ahead of a huge weekend."

Raiders, having announced the departure of goalie Brown on Tuesday, remain without player-coach Adam Laishram as he continues to recover from concussion, following a hit to the head from Hull's Davey Phillips, who has completed a four-game ban.

And Jones says they will not rush their Canadian talisman, adding: "Missing Laish leaves a huge hole in our team. He’s a heart and soul guy and he drags everyone into the battle with his style of play.

"He’s the leader of this team and him not being in the line-up is felt by everyone. That being said we’ve done a great job for the most part as a group of stepping up in his absence and battling each night to not let it derail our good start to the season.

"We won’t rush Laish back, naturally due to the nature of the injury, and we look forward to welcoming him back when the time is right for him to return."