Penguins Will Replace Wilkes-Barre Coaches
The Pittsburgh Penguins are making a couple of coaching changes.
The changes, though, will be with their American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre, where head coach J.D. Forrest and assistant Kevin Porter will not have their contracts renewed.
No replacement for either has been named.
The moves come two days after the Baby Penguins were eliminated from the Calder Cup playoffs by losing the first two games in their best-of-three opening-round series against Lehigh Valley.
“Today’s decisions were not easy and we are grateful to J.D. and Kevin for their dedication and hard work over the past eight and four years, respectively,” Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza said, in a statement released by the Penguins. “Both are good coaches and, more importantly, excellent people. These decisions come after taking the season to fully evaluate our minor-league and development systems.
“As we enter into an era where each of those systems operating at an elite level becomes paramount to the future of our entire program, we felt it would be best to take this time to make the changes that our management team deems important to reaching our goal of having Wilkes-Barre become the premiere (sic) developer of players and staff that can help the Pittsburgh Penguins win Stanley Cups.”
Spezza, not Wilkes-Barre/Scranton GM Erik Heasley, has been named to head the search for new coaches. Per the Penguins’ press release about Forrest and Porter, “additional changes to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton staff will be announced when a new head coach is named.”
Categorized:Penguins Penguins News Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins
Given Dubas’s comments about wanting WBS to be competitive, my guess is they will look for someone with an NHL resume. Or someone close to being NHL ready to get experience in WBS.
Part of me wonders if they’d consider Vellucci, then perhaps add Quinn or someone to the NHL bench. I know Vellucci has been close on a couple NHL head jobs, so that seems unlikely. It’s also a way to add accountability for Sullivan since Bylsma and Sullivan both came mid-season from WBS to PIT.
Sully & Reirden moving down to the farm. Will be able to climb their way back up to the big club with some hard work and clean living. Lol
So not getting past the first round means you deserve to be fired??
How about doing it 6 years in a row????
Fire Sully!!!
Fire Sully? Wow, what a novel approach. Never thought of that before.
Expect David Quinn to be part of the organ-i-zation sooner than later, possibly as a replacement for Reirden, who should have been dumped long ago. Quinn has a lot in his favor: He’s a power play guru and good buddies with Sullivan and has NHL head coach experience. Last season he was vocal about the Sharks’ PP, which I found to be refreshing. The Pens need some of that. If he plays the bad cop to Sullivan’s good cop, I’m all in.
Ooops wrong Penguins Head Coach fired
Fire Sully!