MARCUS Russell with a shorthanded strike in the final two minutes helped the Basingstoke Buffalo win a 6-5 thriller over the visiting Slough Jets.

The home side opened the scoring in the fifth minute on the powerplay, as man of the match Neal Leary scored from Dan Lackey and Kyle Goddard, before Timo Lindgren. equalised A solo strike from Mark Austen gave the Buffs the lead again, but by the first buzzer Slough led 3-2 as Liam Underdown and Benjamin Eastwood netted.

The visitors added a fourt h goal at 33:50 from Underdown. However, the home players protested that a Slough player had slashed the blocker from netminder Aaron Craft , but referee Andrejs Korsaks still gave the goal. Slough player/coach Lukas Smital spoke to the Buffs coach Simon Beere at the bench and at the restart they allowed Dan Lackey to skate to their goal and score in a very sporting gesture from the whole Slough team.

Just 48 seconds into the last period, the Buffalo equalised from Blair Dubyk assisted by Leary and Goddard.

Slough replied from Nathan Darmanin, but a minute later, Lackey levelled things from Connor Hutchison and Leary.

As the game went into the last 10 minutes the Buffs killed off a five-on-three and with 80 seconds left Lackey took a holding penalty. Slough piled on the pressure, but a perfect pass from Leary saw Russell to score the winner.