HOME MATCH REPORT: 08/02/20

Swindon Wildcats kicked off their weekend with a dramatic overtime win against Raiders at the Better Link Centre on Saturday evening.

The Wildcats opened the scoring at 03:41 when Chris Jones was on hand to fire in a loose puck under the pads of Michael Gray in the Raiders pipes. However at 12:01 they levelled the game up through Ollie Baldock who finished off a nice powerplay move past on-loan netminder Jordan Hedley.

Later in the first period Raiders captain Aaron Connolly managed to make it 1-2 at 16:52. A well worked move saw him tip a shot past Hedley with the assist going to Erik Piatak. The teams headed into the first break with the visitors holding the single goal lead.

Into the middle period and it got bad to worse for the Wildcats who surrendered  a breakaway to Raiders import forward Lukas Sladkovsky; the Czech forward slotted the puck under Hedley and doubled the visitors advantage. However the Cats replied almost instantly. After being fed the puck by Luc Johnson; Tyler Vankleef scored his first goal of the evening finding room under the arm of Gray. The second period came to an end and the game was finely poised and the home side knew a big third period was needed to keep the points in Swindon.

The third period proved much the same and at 46:55 Jake Sylvester scored for the Raiders giving them a two goal cushion with just over 13 minutes to play in the final stanza. The Wildcats continued to test Gray, who up until the third period had already made 27 saves. However his defence was breached again when a powerplay goal from Head Coach Aaron Nell, celebrating his 500th appearance for the Wildcats, made it 3-4. The Cats coach found room on the right wing and fired his shot off the bottom of the crossbar and into the net.

The minutes were ticking away and with 1:28 on the clock the Cats called a timeout. Jordan Hedley headed to the bench and the extra man was on the ice. Some solid work around the boards saw Aaron Nell feed the puck across to Tomasz Malasinski and the Pole ripped home a goal to tie the game up at 4-4 with just 41 seconds remaining in the game.

Into overtime we went and an early shot by Aaron Connolly was turned away by Jordan Hedley before the Cats reached the shift that would end the game. A breakup at their own blue-line saw Tyler Vankleef and Stevie Whitfield break through 2-on-1. The Canadian used Whitfield as a decoy before firing a pin-point shot into the top corner to seal the points for the Cats and give us a big 5-4 overtime victory.

AWAY MATCH REPORT: 09/02/20

NATIONAL League points were dropped by Swindon Wildcats on Sunday night against old rivals Bracknell Bees, who grabbed a 3-2 win.

Aidan Doughty netted for the Bees with 10 minutes remaining in the third period to cancel out Tom Rutkis’ quickfire middle period brace.

Rutkis struck two goals in exactly 100 seconds to level Wildcats’ latest second tier tie after they trailed the Berkshire club at the end of the first period courtesy of goals from Josh Ealey-Newman and another for Doughty.

Defeat has dented Swindon’s hopes of lifting the National League title at the end of the season, though more than a dozen games remain.

Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell said: “It’s very frustrating, we had a lot of chances against Bracknell whose netminder was very good.

“We need to put the chances we get away in situations we faced at Bracknell. Bracknell played hard, it was a good game.

“All we can do is keep on going and understand there is still a long way to go. We have a plan in place for the rest of the year and losing to Bracknell makes it difficult but we still need to look after ourselves and be ready for next weekend, our biggest of the season.

“There is still a long way to go, but Basingstoke will be raring to go next weekend.”

Nell admitted Wildcats were far from their best in Bracknell on Sunday.

A strong netminding performance by Bees’ ‘keeper did little to help the Link Centre club’s cause either.

Nell added: “It’s about how we turn up on the night, we weren’t at our best against Bracknell but still had chances to win the game.

“Their netminder made a lot of good games. As frustrating as it is, we are still in the title fight.”