Saturday – Swindon Wildcats 5-0 Peterborough Phantoms

SWINDON Wildcats player-coach Aaron Nell expressed his delight at his team’s defensive performance in their 5-0 victory over Peterborough Phantoms at the Link Centre on Saturday night.

A first-period goal from Edgars Bebris set their Cats on their way before Tomasz Malasinski pounced on a loose puck while the Phantoms were on a powerplay and rifled a shot top shelf to double the lead in the second.

With 10 minutes remaining, defenceman Floyd Taylor made it three while Chris Jones tucked away while the home side were on a powerplay to add a fourth.

Seconds later, it was five as Malasinski broke free once again to round off a perfect night for the Wildcats in front of their own fans.

While the clinical nature of his players in front of the net pleased Nell, it was the reaction to a porous defensive showing last week that delighted the Cats coach.

He said: “I’m very happy with the whole team – I thought we were excellent, especially after last week when we let in 13 goals.

“It was important for us to play hard and have a good defensive performance, and we couldn’t have had a better one.

“Renny (Marr) was excellent, but everyone could see how hard we were playing when the game was over at 5-0 late on.

“Tyler Plews’ block summed it up, but we had around 15 blocked shots tonight, and when people are doing that when the game is effectively over, it shows how much they care.

“When we play like that, we will be successful.”

Saturday’s victory means Swindon have dropped just one point from a possible six so far and as a result, the Cats lie in second place behind Hull – who have a 100 per cent record so far.

Nell is delighted with the start that his side has made to the new National League set-up and the forward believes his side are in a much better place to be successful than they were at this point last year.

He said: “I thought we controlled the game really well and I thought our penalty kill was excellent, so I’m really happy with the whole team.

“The commitment and the togetherness was great to see tonight.

“In my view, we’re a long way ahead of where we were at this time last year.

“We need to keep on pushing and staying together so we can pick up more wins.”

Match Report Courtesy of Swindon Advertiser 

Sunday – Telford Tigers 3-2 Swindon Wildcats (After Penalty Shots)

Swindon Wildcats picked up a point in defeat on the road for the second Sunday running in the National League after they were beaten in a penalty shoot-out at Telford Tigers following a 2-2 draw.

The Cats had earlier thrashed Peterborough Phantoms 5-0 on home ice on Saturday and have therefore made it two three-point weekends in a row at the start of the season.

Telford took the lead inside three minutes through Dominic Florian but Swindon player-coach Aaron Nell restored parity before the end of the first period.

Nell then got his second of the night in the only goal of period two as the visitors edged ahead.

There was only one goal in the final session too, with Adam McKinney the man to get it for the Tigers as the contest finished 2-2 and headed to overtime.

No winning goal was forthcoming in the additional five minutes, with the winner to be decided on penalties.

An early miss for Tomasz Malasinski was to prove costly for Swindon as Telford scored all three of their efforts to snatch the win.

Match Report Courtesy of Swindon Advertiser