Penguins name new Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coach

The Penguins have promoted from within to fill the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coaching vacancy.

JD Forrest, an assistant with the AHL club for the past four seasons, has been bumped up to the top job, the organization announced Friday, replacing Mike Vellucci, who was promoted to NHL assistant last week.

Jason Karmanos, an assistant general manager with the Penguins for the past six years, will take over Vellucci’s duties as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton general manager.

Forrest, 39, is a Boston College grad who spent most of a nine-year playing career in Europe. Before joining Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s staff, he was an assistant with the U.S. National Team Development Program and the head coach of Red Bull Salzburg’s minor league team in Austria for a year.

With Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Forrest has worked with the team’s defense and penalty kill.

“JD has done an excellent job in his four seasons as an assistant coach in Wilkes-Barre, consistently demonstrating a strong ability to develop the young defensemen in our system,” Karmanos said in a press release. “His familiarity with the organization, our prospects and the style of hockey we want to play, together with his work ethic and team-first approach, gives us confidence that he will excel in his new role as head coach.”

Forrest will be working with a new set of assistant coaches once the 2020-21 season begins.

The Penguins also announced that Wilkes-Barre/Scranton assistant Jarrod Skalde did not have his contract renewed and will not return. Skalde, 49, was hired as a player development coach in 2017 and was shifted to an AHL assistant position in 2018.

In an apparent nod to the uncertainty that surrounds pro hockey because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Penguins announced that the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coaching staff will not be filled out until closer to the start of the AHL season.