{"id":246178,"date":"2026-07-17T21:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246178\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:40:08","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-announce-new-partnership-with-florida-everblades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246178\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins announce new partnership with Florida Everblades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced a new partnership with the Florida Everblades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">General Manager Kyle Dubas announced the new team as their latest ECHL affiliate on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cThe Penguins are excited to partner with the Florida Everblades, who are one of the premier organizations in the ECHL,\u201d Penguins Assistant General Manager Jason Spezza said. \u201cAs an organization, our player development system puts a strong emphasis on a three-tiered development model between the NHL, AHL and ECHL, and we feel that Florida\u2019s championship pedigree and winning environment will help our players reach their maximum potential. Under the leadership of Craig Brush and Head Coach Brad Ralph, the Everblades have won four of the last five Kelly Cup championships and our goal to provide Coach Ralph with quality prospects that can continue to help the Everblades bring championship hockey to Southwest Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The Everblades will work alongside the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins of the AHL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The announcement comes after the Penguins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-penguins-end-agreement-with-wheeling-nailers\/7PGEE5NZN5CATHZVQ7FJBCBGSA\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-penguins-end-agreement-with-wheeling-nailers\/7PGEE5NZN5CATHZVQ7FJBCBGSA\/\">ended their agreement with the Wheeling Nailers.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The Penguins said the Everblades are the only all-time team to win five Kelly Cups, including four in the last five seasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The partnership will begin with the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced a new partnership with the Florida Everblades. General Manager Kyle Dubas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5155,105317,105318,13661,105314,6617,105315,105316,73,75,74,1067,105313,105319,105323,105321,105322,105320],"class_list":["post-246178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-ahl","tag-florida-everblades","tag-florida-everblades-and-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-kyle-dubas","tag-penguins-affiliates","tag-penguins-game","tag-penguins-minor-league-affiliates","tag-penguins-minor-league-hockey","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-pittsburgh-penguins-affiiates","tag-pittsburgh-penguins-vs-florida-everblades","tag-scranton-hockey","tag-scranton-penguins","tag-wilkes-barre-hockey","tag-wilkes-barre-penguins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}