Fans’ fears rested as Nottingham retain Werner

Fans’ favourite, and last season’s top defenceman, Eric Werner, has put pen to paper and is on his way back to Nottingham.

This will be his second season in the UK, playing for the Panthers, last season fans took him to their hearts with his ‘stay-at-home’ and steady defensive style that saw him as a rock in defence in front of netminder, Craig Kowalski.

Werner played 61 games for Nottingham last season, picking up seven goals and 30 assists for a points total of 37 and only taking 28 penalty minutes throughout the campaign.

Before coming to Nottingham, Werner built up an impressive career that started at the University of Michigan in 2000. Since then he has played in the East Coast Hockey League, the American Hockey League, and the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, as well as in Norway, Austria, Slovenia and Italy.

As well as picking up the Challenge Cup, Play Off and Elite League trophies, Werner also picked up a host of team and league awards as voted for by the fans.

Werner was voted as the fans’ favourite and most consistent player on the team by the Nottingham Panthers supporters. He also made a mark on other fans of Elite League teams, after being voted by them on to the second all-star team of the season.

In the fans eyes it was a no-brainer to bring back the best defenceman the Elite League has seen for a number of years, and will relieve those who would have hoped for the deal to have been done much sooner.