Flyers draft pick Spencer Gill has a connection to a Broad Street Bully

LAS VEGAS — Danny Dupont was sitting in his home in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, watching the second day of the NHL draft on the TV when he started freaking out.

The Flyers had just selected Rimouski Océanic defenseman Spencer Gill with the 59th overall pick. The cell phone of Dupont, the Océanic’s general manager, started ringing almost immediately. On the other end was two-time Stanley Cup champion and Broad Street Bully André “Moose” Dupont.

“We were so happy. My father called me right away, and I was watching at home and he was watching it at home,” Danny Dupont recalled. “My father’s on the call, and he said to me, ‘Hey, it’s perfect.’ Obviously we’ve grown to know the family as well, and, although my father is not his agent, he still has some connection with Mr. Gill, who was a huge Flyers fan as well growing up. So right there is an important connection.

“We were just so happy for Spencer and the Flyers as well because every time the Flyers pick a good player that the team can get better, it always makes everybody happy in our family.”

And they’re pretty ecstatic now. Plus, the Flyers didn’t just pick Gill, they traded up to do so, sending the No. 77 pick along with the 2025 third-rounder acquired from the Minnesota Wild to the Nashville Predators for the No. 59 pick.

Fair to say this is the guy the Flyers wanted.

Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr and amateur scout Martin Gendron went up to Quebec to see Gill later in the season. Flahr said Danny Dupont had “cut off interviews, but because we were the Flyers they allowed a one-on-one with him and spend some time with him.”

The Flyers not only met with Gill at the NHL scouting combine in early June, where there were about eight members of the staff, but again in Vegas.

“He said there was literally a table of 30 guys in there, and I said: ‘Did you shake 30 guys’ hands?’ And he said twice,” Spencer’s father, Jamie Gill, said right after posing for pictures with a large contingent of family and friends, including his billets, Josee Roussel and Etienne Ruest.

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Listed at 6-foot-4 and 185 pounds, Gill notched 12 goals and 46 points in 65 games this past season in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. The Flyers were impressed by how the smooth-skating blueliner moves and retrieves the puck, and while he’s strong defensively, he does have some offensive pop. Flahr mentioned that Gill’s got a little way to go physically, but if you ask the younger Dupont, he has something else the Flyers and their fans will like.

“If you talk about the Broad Street Bullies, they were all gentlemen off the ice, but once they lace the skates up, they were determined to win at all costs. And Spencer has that same mentality,” the Océanic GM said. “He’s an unbelievable kid off the ice, but once he gets on the ice and laces his skates up, it’s a win at all costs. That’s where I think the biggest value really resembles the older faction if you want, and, for me, that I believe is an extreme fit with the Flyers and the direction they’re going in right now.”

If you ask his mother, Melissa Gill, Spencer is chill but has a competitive edge. That probably comes from having two brothers and the countless mini-stick battles in the basements of their homes. His father said that before they sold their last house, they had to renovate the hockey room in the basement — put in new walls and repaint — and spent “a lot of time down there” working.

That time in the basement certainly paid off. Spencer’s older brother, Dyllan,was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning and signed his entry-level contract in May, and his younger brother, Zachary, who is 16, was just drafted by the QMJHL’s Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.

Known to be tough to play against, Spencer Gill started skating at 3 and played ringette at 4 — it helps with passing and keeping one’s head up — because hockey wasn’t available until the age of 5. The New Brunswick native was the first player drafted from the QMJHL this season.

“The biggest asset is his ability to move the puck under pressure,” Danny Dupont said. “His decisions with the puck [are] really good. ... I think the physical aspect is starting to come out because he’s starting to put more and more muscle on his frame. But he’s a guy who really competes hard. And he’s always the first guy in to go help a teammate in a skirmish or anything like that. So he’s really a team-oriented player that has some really good physical attributes and good hockey sense as well.”

Spencer Gill was a part of Canada’s gold-medal squad at the Under-18 World Championships. He had two assists in seven games as the No. 7 defenseman. And he will get even more experience playing in a big tournament as Rimouski hosts the Memorial Cup in 2024-25. The hosts have an automatic bid.

These days, Moose Dupont is a consultant with PARAPHE Sports Management. In his role, he watches a player’s game and provides advice. Gill said that although he first met his general manager’s father this year, he has gotten some pointers from him during the season. And those certainly have paid off as well because now he’ll get to don an orange and black jersey, too.