The Pittsburgh Penguins announced Ryan Papaioannou as coach of their ECHL affiliate Wheeling Nailers on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Papaioannou (pronunced pa-pah-wawh-noh) succeeds Derek Army, who departed this summer to take an assistant position with the American Hockey League\u2019s Colorado Eagles.<\/p>\n
Papaioannou, 41, joins the Penguins from the Brooks Bandits of the junior British Columbia Hockey League, having led the team as general manager and coach since 2009-10.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of Papaioannou\u2019s time with the Bandits (2008-24) was in the Alberta Junior Hockey League before Brooks joined the BCHL in early 2024.<\/p>\n
Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza, along with Amanda Kessel and Lucas Malloy, oversaw Wheeling\u2019s hiring process.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdding Ryan to the organization as the head coach of the Wheeling Nailers is a pivotal hire for the Penguins and our development system,\u201d Spezza said in a statement. \u201cRyan has consistently delivered winning results, including multiple championships during his 16 years as head coach and general manager of the Brooks Bandits. Additionally, he has a long track record of developing elite players, helping them to reach their potential, and contributing to a winning program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the coming years, the number of young draft picks and free agents we will have entering pro hockey with our organization will be immense. As a result this hire was of tremendous importance to the Penguins and we are thrilled to get to work with Ryan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Papaioannou was named the AJHL\u2019s Coach of the Year in 2013, 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n
His team won Junior A National Championships in 2013, 2019, 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
Assistant coach Mitch Giguere and goaltending coach Karel Popper will be returning to Wheeling\u2019s staff in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
Justin Guerriero is a TribLive reporter covering the Penguins, Pirates and college sports. A Pittsburgh native, he is a Central Catholic and University of Colorado graduate. He joined the Trib in 2022 after covering the Colorado Buffaloes for Rivals and freelancing for the Denver Post. He can be reached at jguerriero@triblive.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins announced Ryan Papaioannou as coach of their ECHL affiliate Wheeling Nailers on Thursday morning. Papaioannou…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-84378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}