IN of their largest crowd of the season, Paisley Pirates recorded a crucial 4-3 win over nearest challengers Aberdeen to move clear at the top of the Scottish National League.

Pirates followed that up by claiming a point after withstanding a fightback at Edinburgh Capitals in a 3-3 draw on Sunday.

The home side were on the powerplay within a minute against Lynx and with the extra space, Wilson linked up with Miller and Hassan to put them ahead with less than two minutes on the clock.

The importance of the game was clearly felt by the players on both sides as during the period there was a regular flow of penalties called, but with both goalies in good form there was no other disturbance to the scoreboard.

Pirates went in at the first break holding a narrow one goal advantage.

The Renfrewshire side came out the blocks quickly in the middle session and had doubled their advantage with only 50 seconds played, as Jordan Ross was up with the forward to score a rare goal, Chalmers in the visitors net getting a hand to the puck but was unable to stop it.

With chances coming at both ends again it was something of a surprise that it took until the halfway point in the period for another goal to come.

A shot parried by Chalmers was bundled over the line by the onrushing Orr, the goal standing in spite of protests from the visitors.

Aberdeen were back in it a few minutes later though as Laing pulled one back with a rocket shot from just inside the blue line to give his team some hope at 3-1 going into the final session.

Once again, the final session began with a goal within two minutes of the restart, but this time it was to put Lynx right back in it.

A speculative cross come shot by Dyer deceived everyone to finish in Meechan’s net and pull the score back to 3-2.

Pirates continued to have marginally the better of the play and at the halfway point they scored a great goal.

Johnston took the puck forward and waited until Blair was in the perfect position to slot it behind Chalmers to provide a little insurance with the lead doubled once again.

However, Pirates’ fans were biting their fingernails with less than five minutes to go they were playing off a 5 on 3 disadvantage with both Jordan and Thorpe sitting our minor penalties.

They safely negotiated the first part, but lost a goal with less than four minutes left as McIntosh scored to bring it back to a one goal game again.

With the visitors looking to pull their netminder for the extra skater in the last minute, they lost their momentum as Findlay was penalised for slashing.