Flames Promote Kerry Huffman To Director Of Hockey Strategy

The Calgary Flames are still making the final tweaks to their staff, including promoting NHL veteran Kerry Huffman to the position of Director Of Hockey Strategy, per Tony Androckitis of TheAHL.com. Androckitis adds that Huffman will also continue as a pro scout for Calgary – a role he took on last season.

Huffman has deep roots in North American pros, leading a career that’s taken him through a playing career, coaching career, and now a scouting career. It all kicked off when Huffman was selected 20th-overall in the 1986 NHL Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers, following a stout season with the OHL’s Guelph Storm. He’d make his AHL and NHL debuts in the following season, though 1987-88 marked his formal rookie season, with Huffman managing 23 points in 52 games. That performance was enough to settle Huffman into a second-pairing role that he’d continue in through 1992. He built a strong reputation as a stout, two-way defender, capable of joining the offense or throwing around the body – factors that made him a core piece of the infamous trade that sent Eric Lindros to Philadelphia, and Huffman, Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, and more to the Quebec Nordiques.

Huffman’s reliability continued through two seasons in Quebec, though he’d go on to play parts of three seasons with the Ottawa Senators – and make a four-game reunion in Philadelphia – before finishing his career with three seasons in the IHL. In total, he played through 10 NHL seasons and 401 games, recording 145 points and 361 penalty minutes.

Huffman retired in 1999, marking an end to his formal hockey involvement until he began working as an NHLPA certified player agent in 2012, and coaching AAA youth hockey in 2014. That quickly evolved. He was named an assistant coach and Director of Hockey Operations for the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights in 2015, and made a move to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ bench in 2016. He supported the Phantoms through five fruitful years- including multiple 100-point seasons – before making yet another career change in 2021, when he joined the Pittsburgh Penguins as a pro scout. He was promoted to Pittsburgh’s Director Of Professional Scouting in 2022, and moved to Calgary in 2023 – where he’ll now continue to take on new roles.

As pointed out by Androckitis, Huffman has been heavily involved in his team’s scouting and analytical departments, continuing to build on the stout hockey knowledge he flexed as a player. He’ll now get a chance to flex that knowledge, as Calgary becomes the fourth team to employ a Director Of Hockey Strategy – joining the Dallas Stars (Steve Greeley), Buffalo Sabres (Sam Ventura), and Seattle Kraken (Alexandra Mandrycky).