Our own Adam Reddish offers his perspective on the summer so far for The Nottingham Panthers. The personnel changes, retentions and new signings, one of course being an enthusiastic ‘welcome back’.
Finally, it feels like something resembling a summer (well, it is at the time of writing anyway) and the weather is pretty glorious as I look out the window.
Such baking temperatures and almost endless blue skies should mean most of us are concentrating way more on what to pack for our summer holidays rather than being too preoccupied with recruitment for the upcoming season’s roster. But it’s clear now that hockey clubs are in the business of needing to keep the buzz going through these fallow off-season months. With our lives now so massively influenced 24/7 by social media, it’s almost inevitable that every hockey club (certainly those in the Elite League) must feel under massive pressure to satisfy the almost insatiable craving from supporters for even the smallest morsel of news and content as a way of slowly cranking up the excitement levels ahead of the 2024-25 campaign and there’s been quite a lot of announcements aimed in the direction of the Panthers fanbase these last few weeks.
Maybe the most significant announcement concerned the role of Head Coach at the Nottingham Panthers as the club found itself back in familiar territory once again with needing to find yet another main man behind the bench for the coming season. Of course, the reasons that led Omar Pacha to having to recruit another Head Coach are well known and widely documented and anyone with a heart and an ounce of compassion would not, in the slightest, begrudge Jonathan Paredes a move back to his native France. Whilst in no way a criticism of the organisation, it still sits slightly uneasily that Jonathan never got the goodbye he truly deserved from supporters after his superhuman efforts in regalvanising a traumatised bunch of guys to have a shot at Play-Off hockey right down to the very end of the regular season. Perhaps he might not have wanted to make his departure all about him (I suspect not), and despite not knowing the man, the quiet, respectful and considered demeanour he maintained throughout the most gruelling of seasons suggests that a low-key exit was absolutely what Jonathan would have wished for. Whatever the circumstances of his departure, Panthers fans should be massively grateful for Paredes’ efforts whilst operating in the harshest and most extreme of working environments, and many will keep an eye out for how he gets on with his new club Ducs d’Angers. Sadly, we’ll never know how last season might have panned out if the tragic events of October 28th hadn’t occurred, but on the basis of how Paredes team were starting to gel in those games immediately before that fateful night, we were surely on track for a top-four finish – something that would’ve represented a big jump forward from a massively underwhelming 2022-23 season.
So for now, it’s a heartfelt merci and au revoir to Jonathan and hopefully we’ll cross paths again somewhere down the road.
Focusing instead on the new(ish) Head Coach, it’s uncontroversial to say the appointment of Danny Stewart was one many fans were caught out over in knowing quite what to make of it. I know I certainly was.
As ever, social media platforms proved to be rather toxic environments, and it was hard not to escape some of the more derogatory comments made by clearly frustrated fans in the hours and days after the announcement. I don’t know why given the years of general on-ice underperformance and the fact we’ve slipped massively behind Sheffield, Cardiff and Belfast in vying for league titles, but in my head I was expecting Omar Pacha to make a move for a high-profile Head Coach. Who exactly though, and why would such a character want to come to Nottingham? Well I don’t quite know. Although when the news broke of Stewart’s arrival, I’ll admit there was more than a hint of ‘meh’ and ‘missed opportunity’ about it. In some quarters, there still is, however, as the last few months have taught me about reacting to major events in our sport, it’s always prudent to mull the bigger picture over rather than resorting to kneejerk comments, so it was only fair to reflect on the appointment with a degree of balance. Interestingly, many views expressed by fans of other clubs (but not necessarily by Blaze fans!) were fairly complimentary towards Stewart, particularly around his excellent knowledge of the Elite League and his ability to operate within challenging and constrained financial parameters. This made me reappraise my outlook on our new Head Coach, was it really such a backwards step to go for a guy who hasn’t yet won a trophy as a coach in the UK, or was there some deeper logic to his appointment?
The proof, of course, will be what we all see in the first few weeks of the new season. Personally, it’s probably a good thing for Danny Stewart to have left Coventry and hopefully a change of scenery and different expectations to manage will reinvigorate a Head Coach who looked to have become jaded in recent years as part of an ailing Coventry organisation. Apologies to any Blaze fans reading this (an outside possibility in itself!) but to me, fan expectations in Nottingham are definitely greater and more demanding than those that currently exist in Coventry. The pressure from the fanbase in shifting the Panthers up the standings remains as big as ever and it’ll be fascinating to see what Danny Stewart can achieve with what is likely to be a larger budget. Could he be the man who eventually gets Panthers back into the conversation over who might be league champions? Well, that’s highly unlikely in the short-term as the ‘big three’ feel like they exist in a different time zone to us right now. But here’s the thing with Stewart, his time at Blaze shows he’s more than willing to commit to a long-term project with an organisation, something that the Nottingham Panthers have needed for a long time. Maybe Jonathan Paredes could’ve been that guy, and his six years at Cergy-Pontoise suggested that he might have been in it for the long haul only for circumstances to lead to his time behind the bench being curtailed, but someone who knows the EIHL inside out may well turn out to be an inspired decision by Omar Pacha. If Stewart is allowed the freedom to build something over multiple seasons, then bit-by-bit and almost by stealth, he could be the figurehead we’ve badly missed ever since Corey Neilson’s long reign behind the bench ended back in 2018.
And so far, the recruitment looks to be on point. some of the roster building pre-Stewart was also shrewd too, and credit should go to Omar for tying down key Brits so early. Whilst losing a talented D-man in Joe Hazeldine feels like a blow, getting a core of familiar Brits back represents good work in securing some continuity. It’s hard to judge anyone on last season’s performances for obvious reasons, but seeing first hand Ollie Betteridge’s performances in a GB jersey against some of the world’s best in Prague bodes well for a big comeback season after missing so much of last year with injury. Getting #74 back and firing on all cylinders again really does feel like a new signing.
In terms of imports, it’s a case of things looking fairly promising and actually, at this point lets reference Sam Herr. What. A. Signing.
His return to Nottingham has been heralded as a massive coup for the organisation, even by fans of other Elite League teams – something that is hard to disagree with. Let’s be honest, many of us have been pining for Herr since his one and only season in a Panthers jersey back in 2019-20. It’s been a long time since an individual had left quite such an impression on fans based on a single year, and some of those performances have lived on the memory. Whilst it’s too soon to be thinking about the on-ice leadership group, the fact that Herr wore the ‘C’ during his year with us surely makes him a strong contender to pick up from where he left off. His acquisition really is a sign of intent from the club, and it’s refreshing to see the jealously from others around the league. But that leads to a wider point over which imports we’re managing to entice back. I’ll be honest, given the horrors of last season it would not have surprised me if none of our imports wanted to return, and just like with Jonathan Paredes, maybe the need to distance themselves from harrowing memories would’ve been 100% understandable. The fact that Stewart has managed to convince Hugo Roy and Didrik Henbrant to return is brilliant news (on top of Otto’s re-signing before we’d announced a new Head Coach) and provides some stability amongst the core of forwards. I’d also like to think us fans had something to do with the decision of all players to return too. It’s telling to hear how the love and support from the stands throughout such a tough season has been referenced by all the returnees as a reason for making that commitment for another season. It just shows the power of a united fanbase – something perhaps to contemplate as we move forwards. Whilst it’s sad that Matthieu Lemay has retired, it should be seen as a big plus for recruitment that Stewart has already started to retain the services of key guys from last year. Christmas would come early if we were able to get Westin Michaud and Carl Neill to come back, but let’s see what happens in the coming weeks.
Of course, nothing is ever won in June (although Cardiff seem to be assembling quite the roster!) and despite all of us relying on Elite Prospects a little too much to get a feel for the calibre of our new signings, it’s still way too early to predict where Panthers will find their level next season. As fans, we all have our own ideas and expectations about what progress might actually look like. Even with a new Head Coach, Danny Stewart will know much about the Nottingham organisation – and let’s face it, the world of EIHL is rather small and insular! Arguably, we’re in a better position now than we found ourselves in at this stage last year when Jonathan Paredes was having to rapidly get up to speed with all things Elite League. That offers confidence that we could be ready to get out the blocks quickly and start to make our mark in those opening weeks of the season.
As we all drift away to our various summer retreats, it’s hard not to be positive about Panthers prospects for a better 2024-25. It’s fantastic to have retained the services of Nieminen, Henbrant and Roy, three standout offensive talents who shone in an unprecedented season, and what they’ve been supplemented with so far by Danny Stewart in guys like Matt Alvaro who has recent AHL experience hints that the Panthers will be competitive next season. Even most recently, another guy who’s iced in a significant number of AHL games, Cooper Zech, has been recruited to Panthers blueline. In general, it’s reassuring to see the leadership traits and abilities in a number of the new recruits which should mean everyone in that locker room is held accountable for their on-ice performances. But naturally, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we shouldn’t expect miracles, the events of last year will rightly remain with us all for the longest time, although the one positive to come out of the tragedy was a pretty solid and unified fanbase. It’s evident that there’s still so much goodwill towards the organisation for what it unexpectedly had to endure and hopefully a good start to the forthcoming season can help continue that strong affection towards the guys on the ice. If not, and if things don’t go too well in the early weeks, I’d still hope that we as fans would offer Danny Stewart some patience and time to let him get his feet fully under the table and start to shape things in a manner that he’s comfortable with. After all, in its everyone’s best interests for him to succeed.
Enjoy your summer everyone, and remember – wear sunscreen!
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