Flyers hire assistants Jay Varady and Jaroslav Svejkovský, as Rick Tocchet’s coaching staff begins to take shape
Both coaches have worked with Tocchet in the NHL at his previous stops.
It’s officially time to get to work.
Three weeks after Rick Tocchet was named the 25th head coach in Flyers history, his staff is coming into focus. The Flyers have hired Jaroslav “Yogi” Svejkovský and Jay Varady as assistant coaches.
“I’m excited to bring Yogi and Jay on board with me,” Tocchet said. “I know both of them very well. They each provide a different skill set, and, more importantly, a different voice, both of which I believe is crucial in not only building a coaching staff, but an entire team and how we grow together. I very much look forward to getting down to work with them again soon.”
A source confirmed to The Inquirer that Svejkovský will run the power play, and a still-to-be-hired coach will run the penalty kill and defense. Varady will have an all-encompassing role on the staff.
» READ MORE: Q&A: New Flyers coach Rick Tocchet talks systems and strategies, his ideas for fixing the power play, and more
Varady, 47, joins the Flyers after serving the last three seasons as an assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings, first with Derek Lalonde and then with Todd McLellan, who was hired during this past season. A former head coach with Tucson of the American Hockey League, he worked with Tocchet as an assistant coach for the Arizona Coyotes, the club’s parent team, during the COVID-shortened 2021 season.
A native of Illinois, Varady has served as an assistant coach and associate head coach with Everett of the Western Hockey League, as a head coach in the Ontario Hockey League with the Kingston Frontenacs, and with the Sioux City Musketeers of the United States Hockey League. He has also manned the bench with underage USA Hockey teams on several occasions.
Varady led the Frontenacs to the franchise’s first Eastern Conference final in 2017-18 and the Musketeers to the Clark Cup final the year before. That same season, Sioux City was the regular-season champion, and Varady was named the USHL’s Coach of the Year.
“The word I would use to describe him is cerebral,” Vancouver Canucks winger Connor Garland, who played for Varady with the Coyotes organization, told The Athletic in 2022. “He doesn’t yell — or he never yelled at me. … It’s a lot of questioning. I’ve watched film with him as an assistant, and it was a lot of questioning of just ‘Why do you do this?’ ‘Why do you do that?’ I think he just tries to understand each player.”
Varady has experience working with power plays and penalty kills, running the latter during his stint with Tocchet in the desert. That season, the Coyotes had the 11th-best penalty kill (80.8%) despite losing three key contributors in Derek Stepan, Brad Richardson, and Michael Grabner. In Detroit, Varady helped with the power play and worked with the team’s analytics department.
“Jay did a hell of a job,” Tocchet told reporters at the end of the 2020-21 season. “He didn’t waver. Sometimes, when things don’t go your way, you panic a little bit. He didn’t panic.”
Svejkovský ran the Canucks power play with Tocchet in Vancouver last season, and the team’s power play ranked 15th at 22.5%. He was elevated from his role as the skills coach, a role he held from 2022 to 2024. A native of Czechia, he is the first European coach, head or assistant, in Flyers history.
The 48-year-old has his work cut out for him, as he inherits a Flyers power play that finished 30th out of 32 teams last season with a 15% success rate. That placement actually was an improvement, as it snapped a three-season streak in which the Flyers finished dead last with the man advantage. Previous power-play coach Rocky Thompson was let go on April 23 along with fellow assistants Darryl Williams and Angelo Ricci.
After the Flyers hired Tocchet, associate coach Brad Shaw, who was considered for the head coaching position, also elected to move on. Goalie coach Kim Dillabaugh is a holdover from John Tortorella’s staff.
Breakaways
Flyers prospect Spencer Gill was traded Thursday within the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. The 6-foot-4 defenseman will go from Rimouski to Blainville-Boisbriand for the price of two QMJHL first-round picks and two seconds. Gill, a second-round pick in last year’s NHL draft, tallied six goals and 35 points in 51 games last season for Rimouski. The 18-year-old missed the end of the season and the Memorial Cup, which Rimouski hosted, with a broken ankle.