Swindon Wildcats coach clings to the positives after shootout defeat (From Swindon Advertiser)

Swindon Wildcats coach clings to the positives after shootout defeat

10:22pm Monday 2nd January 2012 in Ice Hockey By Andrew Warren

HEAD coach Ryan Aldridge was determined to take the positives despite Swindon Wildcats’ shootout defeat to the high flying Milton Keynes Lightning.

Wildcats took the lead at the Link Centre last night as Michal Pinc burst from the face-off to the slot, before getting the puck to fire past the Lightning netminder.

They kept hold of their advantage until the third period when Lukas Zatopek made the most of traffic around the net to fire home.

Neither side could take advantage in an end to end overtime period, as the tense encounter came down to the shootout.

Pinc and Jonas Hoog both missed their efforts while Adam Carr and Blaz Emersic stepped up to find the net, but Aldridge was happy to take a point from a tough game.

“We have got to be pleased just to have got them to the shootout because they are one of the top teams in the league at the moment,” he told the Advertiser.

“The boys all played very well and put in a great team performance.

“This game showed we can play so we need to be taking the positives while we can.

“The boys have done everything we have asked of them, and we can all be very proud of ourselves.

“We have had three hard games over the New Year period and we are pleased with what we have achieved.

“We had a good win against Slough before losing on the road, and we have to take the positives from this game.” Wildcats were without the suspended Jarislav Cesky for the clash, while Shane Moore and James Knight were sidelined through injury.

Netminder Thomas Murdy also sat the game out, and Aldridge has been impressed with stand-in Dean Skinns who was signed as cover last week.

“Dean has done really well in all of the games he has played for us, but we knew he would because he has been around a fair bit,” he said. “I played with him at Basingstoke probably 10 years ago now, while a lot of our players have either played with, or against him recently.

“We missed a few guys against Lightning and we were short benched, but we did well to push through even though we only operated with two lines.”