article in College Hockey News<\/a> shortly after Denver\u2019s loss to eventual champion Western Michigan in last year\u2019s Frozen Four that he turned into bulletin board material.<\/p>\n\u201cLosing Always Stings: Denver thrown off its game by Western Michigan, ending an enormously successful four-year run,\u201d the headline read.<\/p>\n
Carle said this was a unifying force for players. He printed it out and put it on the wall in their dressing room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think everyone wanted to talk about we were losing (goalie Matt) Davis, losing Buium,\u201d Carle said. \u201cWe\u2019ve replaced (Carter) Savoie and (Mike) Benning, (Will) Butcher, (Troy) Terry and (Logan) O\u2019Connor. We\u2019ve been doing it for a while. We have a lot of confidence that (assistant coach Tavis) MacMillan can recruit and build a roster that\u2019ll compete and live up to our standard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not just satisfied to make it to a Frozen Four and then go away with our tail between our legs. It\u2019s comical that people would say things like that or doubt us or our program. We\u2019re thrilled to be back. But ultimately, we\u2019re not going back to participate. It\u2019s a hungry group that has our eye on the prize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why was Carle so bullish? The program\u2019s standard, for one. Their leadership group, which includes Kent Anderson, Minnesota Wild second-rounder Rieger Lorenz, New Jersey Devils third-rounder Samu Salminen and Boston Buckberger. There\u2019s defenseman Eric Pohlkamp, a Hobey Baker Award finalist who could jump right onto the San Jose Sharks roster after Denver\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
Then there was the Pioneers\u2019 10-member freshman class, which Carle noted wasn\u2019t publicly hyped in publications but has played a big role. Denver tapped into the CHL pipeline, from Los Angeles Kings third-rounder Kristian Epperson (Saginaw) to Seattle Kraken fifth-rounder Clarke Caswell (Swift Current) to Calgary Flames sixth-rounder Eric Jamieson (Everett), not to mention starting goalie Johnny Hicks (Victoria). Fellow freshman goalie Quentin Miller, a Montreal Canadiens fourth-rounder, is from the BCHL.<\/p>\n
Turnover is part of college sports. But it does provide challenges for even elite programs.<\/p>\n
Is it harder to reach the mountaintop the first time and win a title, or to get back, like Denver is trying to do?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think getting back is always harder,\u201d Carle said. \u201cYou get everyone\u2019s best game. Throughout the year, you\u2019re a measuring stick to everyone. You always fight a level in your room at times of, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s going to be OK. We can turn it on at the end. Everything is going to be fine.\u2019 Complacency is easier to keep in on a back-to-back run than on the first run.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou lose players. That\u2019s what makes it harder about college. In the pros, your best players are signed to long-term tickets. There\u2019s less turnover. You\u2019re not losing your best players after every run. So to reload is challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every championship team Carle has been a part of in Denver has faced adversity during a season. The 2022 team lost four in a row. The 2024 team dropped three of four in February and got embarrassed at home by Western Michigan. This season was a whole different animal.<\/p>\n
The Pioneers were in a six-game winless streak (five losses and a tie) before Miller \u2014 their original starting freshman goalie \u2014 stole a game against North Dakota, 4-2. The next weekend, Denver \u201claid an egg,\u201d as Carle put it, with a loss to St. Cloud on Friday.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Miller got hurt early on a non-contact play. In came Hicks, who had never started a college game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that moment, you\u2019re not really sure what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Carle said.<\/p>\n
Hicks, a 5-foot-10 kid from British Columbia, shut St. Cloud out 6-0. He\u2019s gone on a 14-0-1 run since, leading the nation in goals-against average (1.125) with a .958 save percentage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas I surprised? No. You believe in him,\u201d Carle said. \u201cBut did we think he\u2019d go on this kind of run? I\u2019d be lying to you if I said that. He\u2019s done a wonderful job. He\u2019s very humble and very centered and has given us that spark, the ignition, whatever you want to call it, to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks wouldn\u2019t have had a chance to make this kind of impact if not for changes to rules about CHL eligibility. Carle is understandably a fan, saying they \u201copened up the markets for all of our teams and programs to a deeper and deeper player pool.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been a lot of change in college hockey, even in Carle\u2019s eight years as Denver\u2019s head coach. But Carle would like to see more.<\/p>\n
For one, he\u2019d love to see the format for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament changed to make it more exciting and accessible to fans. His pitch is for the top eight seeds to host the bottom eight seeds in Round 1, and then to not re-seed the bracket. That\u2019d mean teams would play into the next weekend (there\u2019s a built-in week off between the regionals and Frozen Four as it is).<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also in favor of adding four games to the regular season, pushing the schedule up a week earlier.<\/p>\n
And he is a strong believer in changing the recruiting calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s crazy we\u2019re talking to Grade 10s on Jan. 1,\u201d Carle said. \u201cMaybe talking to kids when they\u2019re in Grade 11 and try to slow down the whole recruiting calendar. We should be watching junior hockey, not youth hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sounds like a coach still very much invested in the college game, and that\u2019s because he is. He\u2019s been on Denver\u2019s staff since 2008, when George Gwozdecky brought Carle on as an assistant after a heart condition discovered around the NHL Draft ended any chance of a playing career. Carle feels significant loyalty to the school, which signed him to a multi-year extension last summer.<\/p>\n
Carle had conversations with NHL teams, including the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks, following last season. He also had a short conversation with the St. Louis Blues a few years ago. So far, nothing has aligned with what Carle is looking for.<\/p>\n
Carle has made his feelings about the NHL pretty clear<\/a>, saying last summer that his latest discussions with NHL teams left him feeling \u201cthere\u2019s zero reason to leave Denver in the near term \u2014 if ever.\u201d<\/p>\nSo while Carle\u2019s name might pop up again as NHL coaching vacancies arise, he maintains that everything is \u201cstatus quo\u201d and that nothing has changed in his feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not more close-minded, not more open-minded to it,\u201d Carle said. \u201cThere\u2019s no rush to leave here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Carle stood in the lobby of the Stifel Theatre in St. Louis at this time last year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[339,22006,113248,7,49,48,4475],"class_list":{"0":"post-858813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche","10":"tag-denver-pioneers","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116363286534495129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}