ECHL's newest team announces NHL, AHL affiliates for debut season
Get ready, here come the Savannah Ghost Pirates! Yes, you read that right, the Ghost Pirates will play their first ever game in the ECHL in October in the hockey hotbed of Georgia, USA. Sarcasm aside, it'll be interesting to see how well the team does in a non-traditional market like Savannah. In the meantime, the Ghost Pirates announced Thursday that the team will have an NHL and AHL affiliate, and that a head coach had been hired.
Savannah revealed its NHL affiliate are the Vegas Golden Knights, meaning the Henderson Silver Knights are the affiliate in the AHL.
"We have confidence that the Ghost Pirate's NHL/AHL partnership with the Vegas Knights organization will provide us with a successful and hard working team," said Ghost Pirates president Bob Ohrablo. "The reception we have received from the Savannah community has been overwhelming. Our goal was to sign an affiliation with a premier NHL franchise. With this announcement we can say that we've accomplished this."
As for the new coach, it will be Rick Bennett. Prior to joining the Ghost Pirates, he was one of the top collegiate coaches in the Country at Union College in Albany, NY where he won the National Championship in 2014, ECAC regular season titles (2012, 2014, 2017) and ECAC Conference titles in 2012, 2013 and 2014. He compiled a 168-126-41 record over 11 years.
According to the news release, the Golden Knights will be heavily involved in the running of Savannah.
"The Ghost Pirates hockey operations will be run by the Las Vegas/Henderson hockey management team...The management team includes George McPhee (President of Hockey Operations), Kelly McCrimmon (General Manager of Vegas), Tim Speltz (General Manager of Henderson) and Andrew Lugerner (Director of Hockey Legal Affairs)."
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Werenski | 2 | 3 | 5 | |
| Sean Monahan | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Jesper Bratt | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Frederick Gaudreau | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Jack Hughes | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Nikita Kucherov | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Mackenzie Weegar | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Kent Johnson | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Alexander Wennberg | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Mitchell Chaffee | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Anthony Cirelli | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Matthew Coronato | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Marcus Foligno | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Nick Foligno | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Conor Geekie | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Brandon Hagel | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Stefan Noesen | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Corey Perry | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Igor Sharangovich | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Dmitry Voronkov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 19 | 16 | 3 | - | 32 | |
Wild | 19 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 29 | |
Hurricanes | 19 | 14 | 5 | - | 28 | |
Devils | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Capitals | 19 | 13 | 5 | 1 | 27 | |
Golden Knights | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Maple Leafs | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Rangers | 18 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 25 | |
Panthers | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 25 | |
Flames | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 25 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||