Pittsburgh Penguins Keeping Kirk MacDonald Is a Big Win for Their Young Players – The Hockey Writers – Pittsburgh Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins have spent the past several years rebuilding a prospect pool that desperately needed more talent. Their decision to keep Kirk MacDonald in charge of developing much of that talent could prove just as important as adding another draft pick or prospect.

Pittsburgh confirmed its 2026-27 minor league coaching staffs on Aug. 7, with MacDonald returning for his third season as head coach of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. MacDonald guided them to a 46-17-7-2 record last season and its first appearance in the Eastern Conference Final since 2014, improving his record across two seasons to 86-41-14-3 with a .656 points percentage.

Winning matters, but the larger value comes from who produced those results. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was the youngest team in the entire American Hockey League (AHL) last season with an average age of 22.97, yet it finished with the league’s third-best record while prospects such as Rutger McGroarty, Owen Pickering, Ville Koivunen, and Harrison Brunicke continued moving through Pittsburgh’s development system.

The Penguins have accumulated considerably more young talent under Kyle Dubas. Keeping MacDonald provides continuity at the stage where accumulating prospects has to become developing NHL players.

MacDonald Has Built More Than a Winning AHL Team

MacDonald’s first two seasons have produced exactly the type of environment Pittsburgh should want from its top affiliate.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton won 40 games during his first season before improving to 46 wins and 101 points in 2025-26. The latter represented the fourth-best record in franchise history, while the ensuing playoff run included series victories over the Hershey Bears and Springfield Thunderbirds before losing to the Toronto Marlies in six games in the Eastern Conference Final. The organization’s review of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s season emphasized that the success continued despite trades, injuries and NHL call-ups repeatedly removing important players from the lineup.

That adaptability is important for an AHL coach. MacDonald’s primary responsibility cannot be protecting his win-loss record because Pittsburgh will continue taking away his best players whenever an NHL need develops. His job is to create a structure capable of surviving those departures while preparing the players leaving his lineup to help the NHL club.

The results indicate that balance has worked. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton remained one of the AHL’s best teams even as younger players received increased responsibilities, and MacDonald credited the roster’s willingness to support one another rather than allowing individual opportunities to disrupt the group.

That type of environment becomes increasingly valuable as Pittsburgh’s prospect pool gets deeper.

McGroarty Shows Why Continuity Matters

McGroarty provides one of the clearest examples of development under MacDonald.

McGroarty initially struggled to produce after returning to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton during his first professional season, but the coaching staff continued expanding his responsibilities away from the puck. By March 2025, Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza described McGroarty as one of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s first penalty killers over the boards, while MacDonald praised his reads on the penalty kill and his work around the net on the power play. McGroarty eventually finished that season with 39 points in 60 AHL games.

That development continued last season. McGroarty produced 10 goals and 34 points in only 30 regular-season games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, then gained the experience of participating in the club’s extended playoff run. His teammates described the postseason as an opportunity to understand how difficult winning becomes when every detail matters.

Pittsburgh still has to determine whether McGroarty can secure a permanent NHL position, and the competition surrounding McGroarty remains difficult. Keeping the same AHL head coach gives him a familiar development environment if he returns to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton at any point rather than requiring another adjustment to a different system or set of expectations.

Koivunen and Pickering Have Also Developed Under MacDonald

McGroarty is hardly the only important young player who has benefited from time in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Ville Koivunen emerged as one of the AHL’s most productive young forwards during MacDonald’s first season, recording 21 goals and 55 points in 62 games before earning an NHL opportunity. MacDonald specifically praised Koivunen’s competitiveness and ability to win puck battles despite his smaller frame, showing that the staff’s evaluation extended beyond the playmaking that appeared on the scoresheet.

Koivunen remained dominant at the AHL level last season, producing 13 goals and 41 points in only 34 games. Pittsburgh’s decision to sign Koivunen for eight years demonstrates how much organizational confidence he has earned while developing between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Pittsburgh.

Owen Pickering represents a different developmental challenge. His NHL momentum slowed last season, but he played 68 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and produced 28 points before suffering a broken foot during the playoffs. MacDonald had already noted improvements in Pickering’s assertiveness, gaps, and puck movement entering the season, giving the former first-round pick a clear set of areas to continue building upon.

Those examples matter because development is not identical for every prospect. Koivunen needed to prove that his intelligence and skill could survive North American professional hockey, McGroarty needed to expand his two-way impact, and Pickering required patience while growing into the responsibilities of a professional defenseman.

MacDonald’s staff has already worked through those individual challenges.

McFeeters and Popper Strengthen the Development Staff

Pittsburgh did more than retain MacDonald.

The Penguins promoted Evan McFeeters to assistant coach for development and Karel Popper to goaltending coach after both worked with the organization’s ECHL staff in Wheeling last season. Brad Malone and Nick Luukko will also return as assistant coaches, while Ryan Lennon joins the group as video coach after two seasons with the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League.

Promoting McFeeters and Popper creates another layer of organizational continuity. Players who move from the ECHL to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton can encounter coaches who already understand the Penguins’ broader developmental approach rather than entering an entirely separate environment.

The Popper promotion is particularly relevant because Pittsburgh has significant young goaltending assets moving through the system. Sergei Murashov was named to the AHL Top Prospects Team after an impressive season and recorded 182 saves during the six-game Eastern Conference Final, while Joel Blomqvist remains another young goaltender competing for NHL opportunity.

Development cannot depend exclusively on one head coach. Strengthening the staff around MacDonald gives Pittsburgh more resources to work individually with players while maintaining the successful structure already in place.

Penguins Need Their Improved Prospect Pool to Produce NHL Players

The importance of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has increased because Pittsburgh finally has enough prospects for development decisions to matter.

The organization’s system has become substantially deeper under Dubas, even if it still lacks an obvious future superstar. A recent examination of the Penguins’ increasingly deep prospect pool highlighted players such as Brunicke alongside the growing collection of prospects Pittsburgh hopes can eventually fill meaningful NHL roles.

Harrison Brunicke is another example of the next wave. The 2024 second-round pick has already gained professional experience and remains one of Pittsburgh’s more intriguing young defensemen, while Tomas Galvas, Tristan Broz, Tanner Howe, and several recent draft selections give the organization additional players at different points in the pipeline.

The Penguins cannot rebuild their future simply by winning trades or accumulating draft selections. Some of those players must become NHL contributors, and the probability of that happening depends heavily on what occurs during the years between draft day and a permanent NHL role.

That is where MacDonald becomes important.

Keeping MacDonald Gives Pittsburgh Valuable Stability

AHL coaching continuity rarely generates the attention of an NHL trade or major contract, but Pittsburgh’s Aug. 7 announcement deserves more consideration than an ordinary minor league staffing update.

MacDonald has won 86 games in two seasons while coaching a young roster, reached consecutive Calder Cup Playoffs, and helped take Wilkes-Barre/Scranton deeper into the postseason than it had gone in more than a decade. More importantly, players such as Koivunen, McGroarty, and Pickering have been given meaningful responsibilities while the team continued winning.

That combination is exactly what Pittsburgh needs from its top affiliate. A winning AHL team has limited long-term value if its roster is built around veterans who will never contribute in Pittsburgh, while a development program that continually loses can deny young players the opportunity to experience meaningful late-season hockey.

MacDonald has helped Wilkes-Barre/Scranton achieve both objectives at the same time. His young players are developing while learning how to compete in playoff races and postseason series.

The Penguins have worked hard to acquire more prospects. Keeping MacDonald gives them a better chance of turning those prospects into something much more valuable: NHL players.