The winning goal did not come until the final ten minutes of a game which Lightning should have won by a far greater margin.

However a combination of a lack of imagination in front of goal and some excellent netminding by Mark Lee in the Raiders goal reduced Lightning's chances.

The match marked the return from injury of influential import Ales Parez for Lightning. Although he showed some good touches he still has to return to full match fitness.

Raiders went close to scoring short-handed when Danny Hammond was called for slashing after just over two minutes – goalie Barry Hollyhead saving one on one from Danny Marshall.

The visitors took the lead on 5mins 41secs when Eric Bochna set up Andrius Kaminskas to register from close range.

And they could have extended the lead as Grant McPherson found himself in the penalty box for holding in the 10th minute. Instead Dan Croft sent Adam Carr away up centre ice.

Carr's tenacity saw him shake off the attentions of two defencemen before firing past Lee for a short-handed equaliser at 11mins 26secs.

Two minutes later home fans were left wondering how the hosts didn't score while Mark Williams was serving a two minute spell for tripping. No less than four shots were fired in on goal in rapid succession from Mikko Skinnari, Toni Alasaarela, Gary Clarke, Alasaarela again before Skinnari's second effort hit the pipework.

With three and a half minutes to go Kurt Irvine was denied by the pipework as the teams went into the first break level pegging at one apiece.

Seven minutes or so into the second session Clarke, incredibly, joined the list of players whose shot hit the pipework as he was given time to pick his spot.

Two further powerplay chances for Lightning came and went with the home side making little impression – in fact they did better while short-handed with Parez in the sin bin for delaying the game when Clarke went one on one with Lee, only for the netminder to block his effort.

Romford though, looked equally poor on the powerplay with Lightning hardly put under any pressure.

With the scores still tied at 1-1 at the start of the third session there was all to play for. However Lightning were let down by some poor passing early on while Romford's only real chance came from a Marshall shot which Hollyhead was able to save.

Too often Lightning had failed to lift the puck off the ice to test Lee's catching. There was no such mistake though when Alasaarela found himself in space on the left and had time to pick his spot in the top of the net to at last put Lightning in front at 51mins 40secs.

That effectively ended Romford's challenge and the game despite a clash which saw Michael Wales receive two plus 10 minutes for cross checking player-coach Rob Stewart from behind 58mins 38secs – Stewart was given two minutes for cross-checking in return.

It was enough to disrupt any thoughts Romford had of withdrawing Lee for the extra skater as Lightning played out the final minute for the win.

Lightning v Romford statistics:

Lightning scorers: Adam Carr 1+0, Toni Alasaarela 1+0, Dan Croft 0+1, Grant McPherson 0+1.

Romford scorers: Andrius Kaminskas 1+0, Eric Bochna 0+1, Michael Timms 0+1.

Shots on goal: On Barry Hollyhead 21/1

On Mark Lee 39/2