David Carle, Coyotes, and the Yzerplan

A quick Monday morning read to go with your cup of coffee.

Happy Monday.

I’m gonna try and keep this clean and tidy, but admittedly it’s gonna be primarily scatter shooting as we enter the final four days of the NHL regular season.

Here is a good primer for what we’ve got on the schedule.

And before we get into the NHL space, I want to start with the events from this past weekend, where Denver defeated No. 1 Boston College 2-0 in the NCAA title game. It was the tenth title for Denver, now the most in NCAA history, and potentially a college hockey resume capper for David Carle.

Carle is only 34, he won’t be 35 until November.

In his coaching career he’s already won two NCAA titles as a head coach, one as an assistant, and led the Americans to a gold medal at the World Junior Championship back in January.

He has publicly played off leaving for the NHL before, noting the most important thing on his mind was getting Denver that 10th title. Well, now it’s happened, and honestly Carle should be the top candidate for the current jobs in Los Angeles and New Jersey.

Both teams currently have interim coaches, and one of them will be coaching in the playoffs, but in my view, both would be wise to reach out to Carle rather quickly.

From Carle’s perspective, it’s going to take a lot of money and security to leave basically a job-for-life at Denver. He’s highly compensated by Denver, and I’ve been told he has similar bonuses to the ones we saw publicly when Adam Nightingale signed an extension at Michigan State.

It's a pretty good gig to be a college hockey coach

If we use Nightingale’s deal as a base, just imagine what Carle might be making when he already had an NCAA title before this season.

But if I’m New Jersey, and I’m trying to get the Devils back into Eastern Conference contention, I’m making the best offer I can to Carle. The Devils roster should also be appealing, and as long as the goaltending holds up, New Jersey should be right back in the postseason in about 12 months.

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On the Coyotes…

The Arizona Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake City, Utah. It might not be finalized yet, but there’s enough smoke to the fire and I believe the reports from Craig Morgan when I see them.

On a personally note, I feel badly for Craig and everyone who’s covered that team extremely well at PHNX Sports. Traditional sports media and even some big-time companies that thought they re-invented the wheel bailed on the Arizona market a couple years ago, and PHNX has shown there is a demand for hockey coverage, even when certain executive decisions makers have thought otherwise.

I don’t know if the Coyotes (or whatever the new name will be) will work in Utah. I’m fascinated to find out. But it’s an unfortunate ending to the current state of the franchise, especially in a week where one of the few local products of that franchise, Auston Matthews, could reach the 70-goal marker.

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The State of Yzerplan…

This is a topic I’m going to address at length later this week, because I think it’s a fascinating one.

The Detroit Red Wings are effectively playing postseason hockey tonight and tomorrow against the Montreal Canadiens. Two must-win games, with outside help needed, to get into the actual playoffs.

It’s a spot they both wanted to be and hate that they are in it at the same time.

Remember, at one point the Red Wings had an eight-point gap between them and the playoff cutline. When you add that context, this season feels more disappointing.

But when you think about the other realities, the context from before the season when many of us thought they’d miss the playoffs — myself included — playing these games, with playoff implications, this week is a step in the right direction.

Once again, we’ll get into it more in a full-length post later this week. But I will say it’s nice to get going to a game tonight in Detroit that still matters on April 15.

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The plan for this week…

As I alluded to last week, it’s been a wildly hectic time in my life. It’s been awesome, but hectic.

Part of the reason for that hectic schedule was to better clear everything for this week and the next three months.

So, for this week, I wanted to fill in readers on what we’ve got on the docket and open it up for story ideas and suggestions.

• As mentioned before, we’ll have a piece on the state of the Yzerplan.

• A Stars playoff series preview and maybe (hopefully) a Red Wings series preview as well.

• A quick one-sheeter NHL playoff preview for what I’m looking at in each series of the first round.

• Some film work with Stars prospect Lian Bichsel currently playing in the SHL.

That should make for a fun and tidy week.

For the playoffs themselves, starting Saturday, I’m going to do my best to try and write daily.

That’s not a promise, but it’s the intention. Daily could mean something the day after a game, it could mean the night of. I do have multiple jobs and two kids, so we will do our best to grind through the playoffs as effectively as possible.

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to drop any story ideas/comments/things you’d like covered below.