General Manager Danny Briere and President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones have decided on the team they want working with them in this new regime of Philadelphia Flyers hockey.
Announced by the Flyers on Friday morning, the team have promoted Alyn McCault to Assistant General Manager, Riley Armstrong to Director of Player Development, and Nick Schultz to Assistant Director of Player Development.
“I’m excited to announce the promotions of Alyn, Riley and Nick,” Briere said in the team’s press release. “These three have been around the organization for some time, in particularly, with our current prospects and young players, so I know they will each provide the direction and leadership that is necessary to get our future assets to the NHL level.”
McCauley has been an NHL pro scout for 11 years now – first with the Los Angeles Kings for six seasons and then moved over to Philadelphia for the last five. He was then named the Director of Player Personnel for the Flyers at the beginning of last season and has quickly made his way to the front office as one of Briere’s assistants. Brent Flahr and Barry Hanrahan will still hold their positions as assistant general managers and vice presidents of the team.
One of the more interesting moves is adding Armstrong to the Flyers management group. Armstrong retired from hockey in 2016 and the very next season was the assistant coach for the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers for two seasons. He then got hired to Briere’s Maine Mariners team as the head coach there for the 2018-19 season. For the 2019-20 season he had a duel role as head coach and assistant general manager, and then for the 2020-21 season moved to the front office full-time.
Armstrong was officially brought into the Flyers organization before the 2021-22 season, serving as the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ assistant coach up until this move to the player development side.
Of course the most familiar name is Nick Schultz, who played on the Flyers blue line for the last three seasons of his career before hanging up his skates in 2017. He quickly turned around and decided to stay involved in hockey, getting hired by the Flyers as a development coach and ran the bench for the Triple-A minor hockey Flyers teams up until getting this substantial promotion to be one of the leaders of player development for Philadelphia.
According to the team’s press release, it will be Schultz and Armstrong leading the charge to assist in developing Flyers prospects.
You can’t have promotions without some firings. In turn, the Flyers have let go of senior advisor Mike O’Connell, development coach John Riley, and long-time development coach Kjell Samuelsson.
O’Connell has been with the Flyers for just two seasons after being an advisor and development coach for the Kings and past general manager of the Boston Bruins. He’s been involved in NHL front offices since 1994, so maybe it’s time to retire anyways.
Riley and Samuelsson have been involved with the Flyers for the majority of this century; the former being a scout and coach since the 2008-09 season and the latter having some sort of role with the organization since 2000.
It might not be the big and splashy moves that some people wanted, but ever so slightly, this new management pairing is getting their guys in the right roles. Especially on the player development side, where it has been a tragic shortcoming of the Flyers for multiple years now.
