The Pittsburgh Penguins, in collaboration with the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins (AHL) and Florida Everblades (ECHL), have announced their affiliate coaching staffs for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins (AHL) Coaching Staff<\/p>\n
Head Coach \u2013 Kirk MacDonald
\nAssistant Coach \u2013 Brad Malone
\nAssistant Coach \u2013 Nick Luukko
\nAssistant Coach, Development \u2013 Evan McFeeters
\nGoaltending Coach \u2013 Karel Popper
\nVideo Coach \u2013 Ryan Lennon
\nManager of Team Services \u2013 C\u00e9drik Cabana<\/p>\n
Returning for his third season behind the WBS bench is Head Coach Kirk MacDonald, who guided Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton to a 46-17-7-2 record in 2025-26 and led the team to its first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since 2014. Since being named head coach of the WBS Penguins, MacDonald has posted an 86-41-14-3 combined record, .656 points percentage and led the team to consecutive Calder Cup Playoff appearances.<\/p>\n
Joining MacDonald behind the bench are assistant coaches Brad Malone and Nick Luukko, who are returning for their second and third seasons, respectively, as assistant coaches with WBS. In addition, the team has promoted Roving Development Coach Evan McFeeters and Goaltending Coach Karel Popper. McFeeters and Popper were both on the Penguins ECHL coaching staff in Wheeling in 2025-2026 and will serve WBS as Assistant Coach, Development and Goaltending Coach, respectively. Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton has also hired Ryan Lennon, who spent the last two seasons in the OHL with the Kingston Frontenacs, as the team\u2019s video coach.<\/p>\n
Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton has also made changes to their support staff. David Roper and Dan Resavy have both been internally promoted to lead their respective departments, with Roper serving as Head Equipment Manager and Resavy as Head Athletic Trainer. The WBS equipment staff also includes Eddie Duffy, who is returning for his first full season with the team, and newly hired Morgan Payne, who spent the past six seasons with the Barrie Colts (OHL). In addition, Connor Keenan will be returning for his fourth season as the team\u2019s Strength and Conditioning Coach. C\u00e9drik Cabana joins WBS as Manager of Team Services after spending the last two seasons in the QMJHL with the Victoriaville Tigres as their Video Coach and Team Services Coordinator.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida Everblades (ECHL) Coaching Staff<\/p>\n
Head Coach\/General Manager \u2013 Brad Ralph
\nAssistant Coach \u2013 Kyle Mountain
\nGoaltending Coach\/Development \u2013 Anthony Butrico<\/p>\n
Head Coach and General Manager Brad Ralph is returning to Florida for his 11th season behind the bench. Ralph has led the team to four Kelly Cup Championships in the last five seasons (2026, \u201824, \u201823, \u201822). Since taking over as head coach and director of hockey operations in 2016-17, Ralph has coached the team to five Kelly Cup Final appearances (2026, \u201824, \u201823, \u201822, \u201818), five regular-season conference championships (2026, \u201821, \u201819, \u201818, \u201817), five division titles (2026, \u201822, \u201819, \u201818, \u201817) and two Brabham Cups (2021, \u201818), which is awarded to the ECHL team with the best regular-season record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Completing Florida\u2019s coaching staff is Assistant Coach Kyle Mountain and Goaltending Coach Anthony Butrico. Mountain is returning for his second season with Florida, and Butrico is joining the staff full-time after serving in a part-time role last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rounding out the Everblades\u2019 support staff is Head Equipment Manager John Sellers, Head Athletic Trainer Nicholas Bufinsky, and Strength and Conditioning Coaches Miranda Hartlieb and Mike Carey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins, in collaboration with the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins (AHL) and Florida Everblades (ECHL), have announced their affiliate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-261171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261171","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=261171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}