Princeton coach Cara Morey relishing the opportunity at Flyers development camp

Throughout her collegiate career playing ice hockey and field hockey for Brown University, her professional career playing in the National Women’s Hockey League, and her coaching career with Team Canada and currently at the helm of the Princeton women’s program, Cara Morey never envisioned herself coaching at the NHL level.

But that changed last summer when the Flyers extended her an invitation to be a guest coach at development camp.

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Before her development camp experience, she thought NHL hopefuls had it all figured out. However, during that week, Morey realized just how similar her job at Princeton is to her newfound role in developing NHL prospects. She realized that both sets of players have the same needs and desires — they want to learn from the coaches, they want to connect with them, and they want to be mentored.

“I love Princeton,” Morey said. “I love my players. I love what I do, developing young women. But it has been really cool coming here and I think just as a professional, we all yearn to try to get to what they define as the highest goal, so coaching in the NHL ... would be a goal of mine.”

Now Morey is guest coaching at Flyers development camp for a second straight summer, helping the Flyers’ future hone their skills on the ice. This time around, Morey feels more comfortable at the Flyers Training Center thanks to her familiarity with a number of the players and coaches who were also present last year. A self-proclaimed “hockey nerd,” Morey loves to sit and talk about the game with a different group of coaches and swap knowledge.

She has especially enjoyed observing the rapid development of some players over the course of the year, both on and off the ice.

“They’ve all been super receptive,” Morey said. “Ronnie [Attard], he’s just a sponge. He wants to learn everything. He takes in everything. They all just really pay attention and want to get better. And I think Owen McLaughlin, like from last year to this year, he just keeps getting more and more deceptive. He’s got some sneaky moves to his game.”

This summer, even more women are coaching at NHL development camps. Horsham native Kelsey Koelzer, who played for Morey at Princeton and is currently the head coach at Arcadia, is coaching at the Arizona Coyotes’ camp through their Diverse Coaching Internship Program.

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These opportunities for women to coach at the NHL level are “awesome,” Morey said, but they can’t be purely symbolic or superficial.

“I think that we have to make sure we’re not just adding labels and creating positions that aren’t legitimate, that we’re taking legitimate professionals and players and giving them a chance to teach and give value,” Morey said. “So as long as these positions are legitimate and not just kind of a PR move, then it’s awesome. I don’t think any of us want the PR moves because it takes away from the people who have been grinding it out for 11 years.”

Last season was a whirlwind for the Flyers’ 2021 second-round pick, Samu Tuomaala, who played a total of 23 games for three professional organizations: the Phantoms, Sport (Finnish Liiga), and Jukurit (Finnish Liiga). The constant bouncing around took a toll on his development, Tuomaala said via translator (former Flyer and current European-based development coach Sami Kapanen).

“Changing from one team to the other, but not just changing the team, but changing your location, packing and finding a new place to stay and getting to know new teammates and adjusting to a new system to play,” Tuomaala said. “So it’s taxing on young players and not really finding the comfort zone to play with the certain players or get to know the coach and know the system.”

After putting up 31 points (15 goals, 16 assists) in 30 games with Kärpät’s U20 team in 2020-21, Tuomaala notched only three points (one goal, two assists) this past season across three teams.

But the speedy, goal-scoring winger is looking forward to next season, when he will return to Jukurit, and hopes to avoid bouncing around to different teams. Seventeen-year NHL veteran Olli Jokinen is the head coach of Jukurit, and Kapanen said that he has done a great job of developing young players including New York Islanders prospect Aatu Räty. Now, Tuomaala is focused on getting back on track in his development in all areas of his game.

“Being a strong skater and playing with the puck and creating offense,” Kapanen said. “But being a reliable and defensively, too. Those are the things that he’s looking forward to improving and showing that he’s capable of doing. He knows it was a tough year last year, but he’s confident that he has that game. He has been there before and there’s no reason why he wouldn’t be capable of playing the same kind of hockey next year.”

Winger Elliot Desnoyers put up career-high numbers in his fourth major-junior season, his second with the Halifax Mooseheads, in 2021-22 (42 goals and 46 assists in 61 games). Now, the 20-year-old is ready to make the jump to the professional level, and he already has an understanding of how he can add value to his next team, whether it’s the Phantoms or the Flyers. “A guy that’s responsible in every aspect of the game, in all three zones,” Desnoyers said. “A guy that can be used in any situation.”