SWINDON Wildcats came from 3-0 down to defeat Telford Tigers for the third time this season with a 5-3 success at the Link Centre.

Tigers took a 2-0 lead into the first period break thanks to goals from Jonathan Weaver and Joe Miller and Jason Silverthorn stretched the advantage even further early in the second period.

But Wildcats hit back through to level at the end of the second period thanks to Jonas Hoog, Aaron Nell and Adam Harding.

In the final period, Nell put his side into the lead for the first time with his second of the match before Malasinki scored in the final minute.

Wildcats came into this evening’s game determined to put last Sunday’s defeat to struggling Bracknell Bees behind them.

And having already defeated the Shropshire side twice this season confidence was high, however, player-coach Aaron Nell had warned in the build up to the game about the dangers of Jonathan Weaver.

However, it was the hosts who had the first real shot on goal when Tomasz Malasinski broke for the Cats and he found Nell but his effort was straight at Tigers’ netminder Sam Gospel.

Having warned about the Weaver in the build, Nell and his side found themselves trailing after the Telford dangerman had his shot deflected past Stevie Lyle with nine-and-a-half minutes of the first period gone.

Just 40 seconds later and Cats were 2-0 down. Tigers had put pressure on the Link Centre side from the restart and Joe Miller drilled the puck under Lyle.

Things went from bad to worse for Nell as he was sent to the bin with just under 14 minutes on the clock for boarding.

But the Cats have been the masters of killing the power plays this season and did so once again.

With less than four minutes of the period remaining Sam Bullas should have pulled a goal back for the hosts when skipper Jan Kostal picked him out at the far post only for his effort to go wide.

It was poor start to the second period for the Cats as with less than three minute gone Jason Silverthorn added the third for the Tigers.

However, that brought the Cats to left and with a little more than 24 minutes on the clock Jonas Hoog pulled a goal back after being picked out by Nell following some good work from Malasinski.

Three minutes later, Nell reduced the arrears to one after Hoog returned the favour for the player-coach.

Hoog then found himself in the bin for hooking, but Cats once again killed the power play.

The wheels then started to fall off for the visitors as Marcus Maynard was binned for hooking in the 33rd minute and Cats wasted little time in levelling the scores.

Some good work from Malasinski saw the puck pushed out wide to Nell and he found Adam Harding to drill it home.

Soon after Tigers were penalised once more, this time for having too many on the ice, but Cats could not make the most of this power play.

Sam Bullas almost put the Cats into the lead with 44 minutes gone when a mistake from Gospel sees the puck come free but Tigers manage to scramble it to safety.

Nell puts his side into the lead a lovely pass from Malasinski puts the player-coach to fires past Gospel with nearly 48 minutes gone.

Telford piled on the pressure to try and force the game into overtime but they were finding no way past a solid Cats defence even with Carlo Finucci in the box for the final two minutes of the game for abuse of official.

And to top it off Malasinski put the icing on the cake when Tigers pulled Gospel and the Cats ace drilled the puck into the empty net.