The Lehigh Valley Phantoms need a new head coach. After Ian Laperriere has opted to let the Philadelphia Flyers reassign him from AHL bench boss to an advisor for hockey operations, there needs to be a new leader for the Phantoms.
As it has been speculated — and it makes it somewhat obvious — the Flyers are giving this upcoming Phantoms season a whole lot of attention. In previous years, there might be a couple prospects who have NHL potential but would still need several years of guidance and development — of course outside of the guaranteed Flyers like Tyson Foerster and Cam York — the 2025-26 Phantoms season is going to have an overwhelming amount of key young players.
Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk are graduating from the OHL. Carson Bjarnason should get some starts in between the pipes after moving on up from the Brandon Wheat Kings. Alex Ciernik could be trying to carve out a role. Devin Kaplan is going to get some sort of opportunity. And finally, Alex Bump and Nikita Grebenkin will be there if they don’t make the Flyers roster out of camp. Basically, there is going to be a whole lot of young prospects that will be with the Phantoms who are either going to be making their professional hockey debuts or were barely with the team last season.
It’s understandable that the Flyers front office views this as a pivotal season to really get on the right development track for their next wave of young players. So, they need the right coach leading them.
But, who is that? We have some more concrete names and some more theoretical possibilities for who will be the next Phantoms head coach.
Jay McKee
Easily the most straightforward option considering all that we have heard. Early reports mentioned that the Flyers have interviewed Jay McKee for the NHL head coaching position, but it might have been really more of a conversation for the Phantoms job. The former NHLer and teammate of general manager Danny Briere, has been a head coach in the OHL for parts of eight seasons, split evenly between the Kitchener Rangers and the Brantford (formerly Hamilton) Bulldogs — leading both teams through the ebbs and flows of junior hockey.
With that resume and obviously being familiar with parts of the front office, it certainly helps McKee’s case to become the Phantoms’ next head coach. Outside of this season with projected top-10 2025 draft pick Jake O’Brien, McKee has not had the chance to coach top-end talent during his time in the OHL. Nick Lardis and Marek Vanacker are interesting players currently on the Bulldogs, but in all eight years, the most impact NHL player that he managed to coach in juniors might be Winnipeg Jets defenseman Logan Stanley while in Kitchener.
It’s not a knock or an advantage, but it’s just an interesting tidbit of information when it comes to McKee’s track record for development. He has brought a whole lot of role players to a decent amount of success, though.
John Snowden
It would be very easy to see the Flyers just bringing up current Phantoms assistant John Snowden to the head coaching role. Snowden was the head coach of the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers before moving into a hockey operations role with that organization for one single year. He was then promoted to assistant coach of the Toronto Marlies, and then promptly hired just two years into that position for the same role with the Phantoms.
It would continue his step-by-step trajectory, and it certainly would make sense to keep someone familiar with the current roster.
Cory Stillman
Back to the Ontario Hockey League. Stillman, with over 1,000 NHL games under his belt for five different organizations, could be an interesting hire but the timing might not be right. Since retiring, Stillman was the director of player development for the Carolina Hurricanes for several years, focusing on the forward group that now makes up the Eastern Conference finalists. He then took his talents to the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves to be their head coach for a few years, where he was able to coach Quinton Byfield for a couple seasons.
Stillman then was hired by the Arizona Coyotes to be one of their assistant coaches in the 2020-21 season. He worked under current Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet for one season, before he moved on and Stillman then worked with Andre Tourigny for the next three years before jumping back to the OHL to lead the Guelph Storm. We know a guy that plays there.
That is why the timing might be tricky. Stillman is an up-and-coming coach after returning back to the OHL and leading Canada’s Under-18 team recently and should probably not just make the jump back to the pro level after one season in the OHL. Especially when it comes to Guelph, who is slowly rebuilding with hopes to compete in a few years. And, if Luchanko doesn’t make the Flyers roster, he will be back with the Storm for his final year of juniors and if Stillman isn’t there, he might not get the best coaching possible.
Stillman would be an intriguing name, considering his track record for development, but the timing might just not be perfect.
Bob Boughner
Let’s get into the muck. Bob Boughner was part of Derek Lalonde’s staff that was let go in the middle of the Detroit Red Wings’ 2024-25 season. He is also the owner of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires and was their head coach whenever he didn’t have a job in the NHL. Feels like a fairly comfortable position to be in.
Boughner has had stints on NHL benches — San Jose as an assistant for two seasons, Florida as a head coach for two seasons, back to San Jose as an assistant-turned-interim head coach for a couple more seasons, to then Detroit for parts of three seasons under Lalonde — but never ever took the middle step of the AHL. It was either back home in Windsor or the NHL. Maybe, just maybe, he would want to lead a group of freshly graduated prospects that need that extra boost and professional experience behind the bench.
Dylan Hunter
From one of the more experienced options to one of the least. We all know that the Flyers front office and the London Knights have a deeply rooted connection beyond Barkey and Bonk. Keith Jones loves the Hunter family. So, why not hire the next up-and-coming Hunter?
Dylan Hunter is the 40-year-old son of Knights head coach Dale Hunter, and has been his assistant since the 2011-12 season. Unless there is some guarantee for when Dale retires — since he is 64 years old — that Dylan will take over, the son is never getting the head coaching job in his family’s legendary franchise. So, he could come along with Barkey and Bonk to join the Phantoms and keep the London-Philadelphia connection as strong as ever.
It is almost certainly not going to happen since this is such a pivotal season for the Phantoms and to hire someone who has not been a head coach anywhere and not even a coach anywhere except under his father, would be an incredibly risky move. But, it’s fun to think about it happening and connecting the dots.
