The Nottingham Panthers are delighted to confirm the signing of forward Craig Puffer for the 2022/23 Premier Sports Elite League season.
Craig joins the Panthers from Danish side Esbjerg Energy where has spent the last two seasons, picking up 104 points (42 goal & 62 assists), playing a key role in his team making consecutive deep playoff runs in 2020/21 & 2021/22.
A product of the University of Vermont (NCAA), Craig scored 54 points in 142 games across four campaigns between 2015 & 2019, before graduating & playing five games for the ECHL’s Indy Fuel in North America and making the jump to the continent in 2019, where he has since spent the remainder of his professional career.
Prior to joining Esbjerg the American iced for Norwegian side Manglerud, where he added 30 points (nine goals & 21 assists) in 29 games to his resume.
Puffer joins the recent additions in netminder Alex Dubeau as well as forwards Tanner Sorensen and Luke Ferrara in Head Coach Gary Graham’s new look team.
Over the weekend the full fixture list for the Elite League campaign was announced with the match calendar now available on the Nottingham Panthers club website.
After a short pre-season concludes with the Aladdin Cup in early September, on the 10th of the month, Nottingham host Guildford Flames in their first league game of the season before travelling to Coventry Blaze the following day.
The much anticipated first match of the campaign against Sheffield Steelers is in the Challenge Cup at home on September 24th with the usual festive match up pairing Nottingham in Sheffield on Boxing Day before the Panthers return the favour a day later.
Nottingham end the regular season with back to back matches against Manchester Storm on March 31st and April 1st before what will hopefully be the start of another playoff push.
For the full 2022/23 Panthers fixture list click here.
*Main image @PanthersIHC American born Craig Puffer has spent the last three seasons in Europe.
