The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats returned to home ice with a massive 5-2 victory against the Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday night, led superbly by a man of the match display from Tomasz Malasinski.

After their game the previous evening had been postponed due to ice issues in Milton Keynes, the Wildcats knew they had one game in the weekend and could ensure full focus into the single game.

After a tough weekend last time out, Head Coach Aaron Nell called for his side to play to their full potential and they started well against Slava Koulikov and the Phantoms. In the opening few shifts the Wildcats generated some nice scoring chances, but were denied by Jordan Marr in the Phantoms net.

Much like the weekend before, the visitors were the side to break the deadlock when a familiar face in Luc Johnson, capitalised on the first powerplay chance of the night. The assists on the goal being given to Nathan Pollard and Scott Robson. The Wildcats didn’t panic, and at 11:11 they’d tied the game up. Jack Goodchild linked up with Aaron Nell and the player-coach fed a pass to Tomasz Malasinski who fired home with almighty power to score his first goal of the season.

The opening period ended with both sides level in the scoreline, and in shots on goal with 9 apiece. The middle stanza would prove very fruitful for Aaron Nell and his men with three unanswered goals saw the hosts take a 4-1 lead going into the final period.

At 32:28 the Wildcats scored their second goal of the evening. Aaron Nell caused a turn over and broke through on goal with Balint Pakozdi on his left wing, the coach slid the puck across to the young Brit who fired the puck past Marr for his first goal of the season. The first goals of the season kept coming at 33:48 when Eddie Bebris found room in the slot to rip a shot into the top corner past Jordan Marr to extend the lead to 3-1, the assists going to Chris Jones and Sam Godfrey.

Less than a minute later the lead was extended again when Aaron Nell found room in the offensive zone to fire into the net to make it 4-1 at 34:33, with the assists this time going to Tomasz Malasinski and Balint Pakozdi.

The Phantoms were blown away and faced going into the final 20 minutes with a mountain to climb, and the Wildcats looking to kill off the game and keep the 2 points in Wiltshire.

At 43:38 things went from bad to worse for the visitors as Tomasz Malasinski scored his second of the evening with a laser of a shot past Marr with the assists once again going to Aaron Nell and Balint Pakozdi. In truth, it could have been more for the Wildcats as later in the period Emil Svec came incredibly close on a couple of occasions and Tomasz Malasinski was only denied a hat-trick as his shot bounced back off the left-hand post.

Peterborough were able to score a late consolation goal when Tom Norton and Duncan Speirs linked up on the powerplay to find Ales Padelek with room for their second of the evening but the final buzzer sounded and the Wildcats had put a big two points on the board.

Looking ahead to this week, it’s an Autumn Cup triple header as we travel to Milton Keynes on Thursday evening, then travel to Basingstoke on Friday night before hosting the Raiders at the Better Link Centre on Saturday evening to complete the group stage of the Autumn Cup.