The coaching staff in the City of Brotherly Love looks to be set.
On Thursday, Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere announced the team has hired Jaroslav Svejkovsky and Jay Varady to be the team’s new assistant coaches.
The two gentlemen will join new head coach Rick Tocchet, who was hired by the Flyers in May, for the 2025-26 season.
Svejkovsky is a familiar name to Toccet, as the Czechia native has spent the last few years with the Vancouver Canucks organization, working under Tocchet as a skills coach before being his assistant this past season. In 2023-24, he was on the staff that guided the Canucks to a Pacific Division title.
A lot of Svejkovsky’s coaching experience has been in the greater Vancouver area. Prior to debuting in the NHL, he was a skills coach for the Canucks’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Abbotsford Canucks. From 2006-14, the Tabor native served as the assistant coach of the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League.
On top of his coaching experience, Svejkovsky also played parts of four seasons in the NHL with the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning.
Like Svejkovsky, Varady has ties to Tocchet. During the 2020-21 season, he was an assistant under Tocchet with the Arizona Coyotes. That came in between his two years behind the bench for Arizona’s primary affiliate, the Tucson Roadrunners, as head coach.
Varady was also looking for a new home after a dismissal from his previous employer. After spending three seasons as an assistant with the Detroit Red Wings, working under Derek Lalonde and Todd McLellan, The Cahokia, Illinois native and the rest of assistant coaching staff was let go.
Along with coaching in the pro ranks, Varady has been involved with USA Hockey, serving as a video coach for the team that won gold at the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship, along with being an assistant coach at the 2011 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
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