New England Black Wolves coach Glenn Clark believes last week's 15-8 National Lacrosse League loss to the Rochester Knighthawks may have been a case of his players acclimating to the speed of a new season.

“First games are usually tough,” Clark said in his weekly conference call. “Guys are getting used to playing at that speed and that pace of play. … We've had our game, so there really are no excuses. The message has been sent. We weren't good enough last week. We got kicked in the mouth.”

Now, the Black Wolves (0-1) need to right themselves. Saturday's game (9 p.m.) is at Colorado, where the Mammoth (1-1) drew 14,631 fans to the Pepsi Center for their home-opener last weekend.

And three of the teams in New England's East Division have already posted victories.

“There's no panic in our group, but certainly you want to be keeping pace with the rest of the division,” Clark said.

Clark said that needs to start with the offense. The defense gave up 15 goals, but four came with the Black Wolves shorthanded following a game misconduct by Kevin Crowley with 6 minutes, 1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. The Knighthawks scored seven power-play goals in the fourth quarter and were 9-for-14 overall on the power play.

“The focus for us, to be honest, is making sure our offense is a little sharper, a little more dynamic, a little more active, to kind of put the other guys on the run a little bit,” Clark said, “not be as easy to play against.”

New England is 0-3 against the Mammoth since relocating from Philadelphia prior to the 2015 season, dropping all three games by two goals or fewer.

Pat Saunders (two goals, one assists) was the only Black Wolves player with multiple goals last week, while Crowley had one goal and three assists and Shawn Evans had a goal and two assists. Eli McLaughlin led Colorado with a career-high four goals in last Saturday's 15-9 loss to Vancouver.