Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Kevin Maxwell had a chance to try something new.
As a player, he played 66 games in the NHL, skated in a Stanley Cup Final, and was Olympian with Canada at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid. He won a pair of Calder Cup championships, with the Maine Mariners and the Hershey Bears.
After pocketing a career-best 36 goals during the Bears’ 1987-88 championship season, Maxwell retired at 28 and went directly into pro scouting with Hershey’s parent team then, the Philadelphia Flyers. It turned out to be a savvy career move, as aside from part of one season in the Western Hockey League as a head coach with Brandon, Maxwell spent 34 years in a variety of scouting roles with the Flyers, Hartford Whalers, New York Islanders, Dallas Stars and New York Rangers.
In 2022, Doug Armstrong, who had been the general manager in Dallas when Maxwell was a pro scout there from 2006-08, approached Maxwell with an offer to run the show with the Blues’ AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds.
Become a general manager. Continue serving as a pro scout, too.
“When Doug approached me about this,” Maxwell recounted, “he said I’ll have more than enough to do. And he was correct.”
Maxwell, who settled his family in nearby Connecticut while scouting, is the Blues’ representative on the ground in Springfield. He manages the team’s day-to-day hockey affairs, involved with the organization’s prospects and the development coaches tasked with working with Thunderbirds players. Last weekend he was in St. Louis for the Tom Kurvers Prospect Showcase, a preseason tournament involving the Blues, Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild.
“You’re touching a lot of different aspects, which has been really exciting for me,” Maxwell said.
This weekend he is back in St. Louis as the team opens its preseason schedule. The Blues are playing seven preseason contests as their rosters at the NHL and AHL levels begin to take shape. Even then, Maxwell’s team still could be highly subject to change. One move here, one move there, can instigate a cascade of subsequent transactions.
“Until you see the whites of their eyes, you don’t really know who you’re getting,” Maxwell noted.
Since the Thunderbirds began play in Springfield in 2016, the team has found considerable success building robust fan support. Team president Nathan Costa and his staff have managed the franchise well off the ice, and St. Louis wants to match that success on the ice. The Thunderbirds, who reached the Calder Cup Finals in 2022, missed the postseason cut this past spring, so the Blues went to work this summer.
St. Louis brought in Steve Konowalchuk as the new head coach in Springfield to replace Drew Bannister, who was promoted to the Blues in December. The Springfield roster is still to be decided, but there are several intriguing possibilities who could see time with the Thunderbirds.
“We’re a develop-and-win philosophy,” Maxwell said. “But as a GM, you’re trying to create, trying to get to where those two intersect – the developing and the winning – to create a real positive atmosphere for our kids and our veterans.”
Maxwell is learning each day, even after nearly five decades in the game. Thinking back to his conversations with Armstrong, it’s what he came to the St. Louis organization to do. Everyone in Springfield this fall, be they player, coach, or management, is there to improve and learn.
“Looking at it from the perspective of how I could learn and develop myself into another role, that was probably the main reason that I came here,” Maxwell said. “We all have goals. The American League is a development league for not only players but management, so I still have a goal of being a general manager in the NHL. I saw that this could help me. I’ve always believed you have to have goals. I appreciate the opportunity that Doug is giving me and looking forward to taking that next step in my career.
“To win the Stanley Cup is still something that I really covet.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
