AARON Nell’s penalty goal completed a shootout victory for Swindon Wildcats over Telford Tigers after being held to a 1-1 draw at the Link Centre.

Jonas Höög opened the scoring in the shootout, following a goalless overtime period, before Milan Kolena levelled for the visitors.

However, in sudden death, Nell made no mistake as he found the roof of the net with his effort before Macaulay Heywood fired high and wide.

Jason Silverthorn got the first goal of the game six minutes into the second period before Ben Davies replied just a minute shy of the second break as things finished all square at the end of regular time.

Swindon's Floyd Taylor missed the game with a bad concussion as Swindon looked to respond to their loss away to Hull Pirates.

It was a game of chess in the first period as both sides cancelled each other out in a match-up between two equally sized teams.

Michal Satek had a chance to open the scoring for the visitors in the eighth minute when he raced onto a puck in space in front of Swindon’s goal but Stevie Lyle stayed big to deny him.

Nell found himself in some space in the centre of the ice for the first time in the 11th minute but his shot was caught by the glove of Ondrej Raszka.

Sam Zajac’s long-distance effort in the 14th minute caused a scramble in front of Lyle’s net but Swindon did enough to prevent Joe Miller before the Telford man and Kyle Smith had a coming together.

In a tactical game, both sides began to show their hands in the second period and good defence from Telford denied both Nell and Tomasz Malasinski from capitalising on Raska’s inability to hold onto Höög’s shot in the 24th minute.

Davies, in his penultimate game with the Cats, reacted quickest to a restart in the Telford third and only a fine diving save to Raszka’s left denied the Brit.

It was the visitors who stole the march in the 26th minute when Sam Zajac tried his luck from distance and Lyle could only block it with his knees.

Silverthorn was the first to react to the loose puck and tapped it under the body of the Swindon stopper.

Lyle was in a spot of bother minutes later when he was pinned for tripping Milan Kolena.

The Slovakian didn’t take kindly to the move and confronted the net minder in his face before being pushed away by the veteran goalie.

Malasinski and Höög both went to protect their net minder before Kolena threw a left punch at the Swede.

With Luke Brittle and Matthew Davies both in the bin in the dying minutes of the period, Swindon were able to make their counter move.

Nell and Höög linked up well in front of goal before Davies applied the finishing touch to make the scores level going into the second break.

Telford returned to full strength early in the third period but it wasn’t long before Miller found his way into the bin for roughing on Nell.

With the man advantage again, Swindon went full out in attack, with no D-men on the ice, but were unable to construct a way past Raszka.

Both sides continued to struggle to get the telling goal but Miller came close when he tried to catch out Lyle from a tight angle in the 53rd minute but could only find the frame of the goal.

The game turned sloppy with plenty of turnovers and opportunities were few and far between.

Jan Kostal showed his strength to drive forward with the puck but Raszka did well to deny the Czech centre in the 57th minute.

With 2 minutes 46 seconds left on the clock, Mark Smith found his way into the bin for delay of the game but it did not prove costly as Swindon saw out the period to take it to overtime.