Nottingham Panthers Head Coach Danny Stewart is looking for his side to keep progressing through pre-season as preparations continue for the 2026/27 campaign.
Stewart enters his third season in Nottingham having already delivered three trophies, winning the Playoffs in 2025 before adding the Challenge Cup and IIHF Continental Cup last season.
“I had a great summer, visited my brother in Texas with my family and was able to visit my mum for a week myself, he began. “We had a family wedding in Spain as well, towards the end of summer, so had a good balance of rest and time with the family.”
Reflecting on last season, Stewart was pleased with what the Panthers achieved, while admitting there was still frustration with how the campaign ended.
“I think it was important for us to follow up Year 1 and win two trophies in one season. It was a great achievement for everyone involved. At the point we won that second trophy, we were still in the hunt for the league and looking good for the Playoffs.
“We weren’t overly thrilled with how the season fizzled out, but overall it was a good season.”
That experience helped shape Nottingham’s recruitment ahead of 2026/27, with the Panthers Head Coach looking to add more balance to his roster.
“We felt that we maybe needed to strengthen a little bit defensively, to have more of a 200-foot game and to add a little bit of mobility to our game,” he explained.
“I think the main thing was also to add some grittiness, to have a balanced approach of skill and grit and toughness, without sacrificing too much in our skill and scoring.
“We feel we’ve done that. The proof will be in the pudding and when we get on the ice, we’ll see how it goes.”
With new players joining the group, Stewart says one of the key parts of pre-season is learning how each of them responds to the environment and to the systems being introduced.
“The biggest thing with the new guys coming in is getting to know them, what their confidence is like and recognising if guys need a little bump to come out of their shell,” he said. “And obviously seeing them on the ice, seeing their hockey IQ and how they react to certain things, new systems and adapting to the environment. We try to do our best in accelerating that process.”
While results still matter in pre-season, Stewart will be focussed on making sure players get the work they need, hopefully without picking up unnecessary injuries.
“When you’re playing at home, and expecting a big crowd, you want to go into every game wanting to win. We obviously want to win the game, but for the long term it’s important that guys get their shifts, their touches and their conditioning in as well.
“And you want to stay healthy. You don’t want to pick up any pre-season niggles, that’s for sure.”
For Stewart, the three-week pre-season programme is about making sure the Panthers improve step by step before competitive action begins.
“Over the three weeks you want to get better every day, week by week. We’ve got one game in the first week that will give us some information and then we have a full week of practice after that.
“Then we have another one-game weekend which will tell us some more. We have another week together and then a good test with the back-to-back against Cardiff to see where we’re at against a team that looks really good, and seeing how we handle playing that back-to-back, to ensure we’ve got better in those three weeks before we start going into the season.”
Photo: Panthers Images
