The David Carle Hype Show

I set out to write a profile of David Carle mostly because I saw a cool story about his background. It turns out there are a lot of cool stories. But I will put the great big giant caveat first before the fun.

Carle signed a multi-year extension as head coach at the University of Denver last May after the hype train had rolled through the NHL for a while imagining him as coach of any team who might be hiring. He didn't just sign a contract to coach, however.

Along with the extension, Carle is also committing to a multi-year major gift pledge to support current and new initiatives within the hockey program. Carle will be the first Denver athletics head coach to join the department’s Gold Standard Society. His gift will directly support the Murray Armstrong Hockey Student-Athlete Enhancement Fund and the Athletics Excellence Fund.

“Our program is tremendously grateful for the support we have received from our fans, alumni and donors. In today’s changing college athletic landscape, we are grateful for philanthropy and season-ticket holder support more than ever to help our program stay at the highest level,” said Carle. “The legacy of Denver hockey wouldn’t be where it is without the foundation laid by coach Murray Armstrong. My family and I are honored to support the Murray Armstrong Fund and become members of the Gold Standard Society with the signing of this agreement. I would invite others to honor Murray’s legacy and support current and future initiatives of Pioneer hockey at a time when it is as crucial as ever.”

This doesn't sound like a guy will now say, "You know, we won the Frozen Four, so never mind on the rest of that extension, I'm out." That is not stopping his name showing up on every listicle of potential Leafs coaches. There is a lot of good reason for the idea, though, so onto the profile, and do let me know if he reminds you of anyone...

At 36, David Carle has been synonymous with DU for so long it's hard to imagine him anywhere else. But he started a long way away. Born in Anchorage, Alaska, he didn't stay anchored down there, but went to Shattuck St. Mary's at 17 to play hockey with an eye to the NHL draft. His brother Matt had already been drafted in the second round a few years before.

While preparing for the draft in 2008, a heart problem was discovered that could be fatal for an elite athlete. With a scholarship in hand to DU and a profile to get him drafted in a few weeks, he retired from hockey. Two amazing things happened. The Tampa Bay Lightning drafted him 203rd overall to reward him for his work to make it as far as he did, and without any idea of how it would pay off for them, DU honoured his scholarship.

I majored in finance and did a minor in economics, so I spent a lot of time at Daniels (College of Business).

My family owns and operates KFC restaurants in Alaska, so business and real estate were always talked about at the dining room table at our house. My brother studied real estate construction management (at DU). My mom worked at the (KFC) stores, and my dad bought the restaurants from my uncle in the 1990s—it’s where they met—so we grew up working in the commissary and in the stores. Without the Colonel (Sanders), we wouldn’t be anywhere.

While pursuing his degree, Carle was offered a role on the hockey team and he served as an assistant coach for four years. He left after graduation for a season and a bit as and assistant in the USHL, but he left that job in December of 2013 just a few weeks after he turned 24 to take up the full time professional role of assistant coach at DU under coach Jim Montgomery.

Montgomery left for the NHL in 2018, first with Dallas, and most recently in St. Louis, and Carle immediately became head coach. His only other coaching experience is two times behind the bench at the WJC for Team USA in the past two years. He seemingly had never been on USA Hockey's radar before.

At the time of his hire at DU, Carle was youngest head coach in NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey at age 28. He became the fourth-youngest coach in history to win a D-I national title in 2022 (32 years, 5 months, 0 days) and is the youngest ever to win two national championships following the Pioneers’ victory in 2024 (34 years, 5 months, 4 days). He is the 20th coach in NCAA history to win multiple national championships and the first to do so since Scott Sandelin of Minnesota Duluth (2011, 2018, 2019).

In his seven years at the helm of the program, Carle has led Denver to a 179-74-17 overall record and an 83-49-11 mark in National Collegiate Hockey Conference play. His .694 winning percentage is presently the highest all-time among Denver hockey coaches, and Carle’s 179 victories entering 2024-26 are three shy of tying Ralph Backstrom (182) for third place on the program’s all-time list.

Team Bio

Now we know who he is, in a general way, how does he coach? And do let me know if this reminds you of anyone...

From a post in 2024, discussing the season just beginning, Ryan Lambert covers the way the Pioneers maintain their roster. They don't do a boom-bust cycle, it seems, the just keep turning over the departing NHLers and other graduates with more good young talent. But at the beginning of 2024 they had turned over most of their roster after winning the Frozen Four in the spring.

"I think the maturity and the starting point of our group is probably higher than it was a year ago," seventh-year Denver coach David Carle told Elite Prospects. "Doesn't mean there's not room for growth, but we're proud of the start and that's all it is, a start at this point. We gotta make sure that we're continuing to get better."

It is, however, hard to find too many areas where "better" is even conceivable. The No. 1 team in the country hasn't just hit the ground running: They're already moving at the kind of pace you might expect for a bullet train. Through the first month of the season, they're 8-0-0 with a 41-11 goal advantage and a plus-81 edge in shots. They're getting .941 goaltending. The power play is running at 32.5 percent. The penalty kill is at 92 percent. They're winning 56 percent of their faceoffs.

Their style is suffocating and dispiriting. They have not yet ended a period down a goal, never trailed outside the opening few minutes of a game. In fact, the opening period has been their worst; they "only" have a 12-5 advantage in goals; it's 18-2 in the second and 11-4 in the third.

From the enemy (rivals Boston College) comes this summation from the start of this last season:

Including the Pioneers’ 6-1 exhibition win over Las Vegas, DU has generated 20 goals in five games played this season, and there is a clear reason why—Denver is averaging 44.75 shots per game.

Of course, shot output is all a result of shot creation, which means that the Pioneers’ spacing in the offensive zone, efficiency in defensive zone breakouts, and control of the puck through the neutral zone has also played a major role in terms of overall shot count.

That is all to say that no matter who is on the ice for Carle, each player understands how he desires the offense to operate.

Seven total players on DU’s roster have scored a goal this year, surprisingly led by junior defenseman Eric Pohlkamp (3 goals, 3 assists), and 16 total players have produced at least one assist. Essentially, the Pioneers are loaded with players, top to bottom, who are capable of generating pressure offensively.

By the end of the year, Pohlkamp led the team in points, on what was very likely unsustainable goal-scoring, but the offence was definitely well spread out over a large portion of the lineup.

The usual whack at the DU tall poppy is the claim that they get outshot a lot. By shots in NCAA hockey, unfortunately, we have to mean Shots on Goal. In this past season. Denver had the most SOG for of anyone (teams play different numbers of games), and their overall SOG differential was 182. So they allowed more than many other teams. They also have really good team Save %.

At even-strength, the SF% was 52, and they had a really high rate on the power play as well, giving them a special teams percentage of 58.

The team wasn't the most dominant in the NCAA. They weren't the Avs or the Hurricanes, but the knock against them seems to be very specific to particular games in the Frozen Four and is therefore a "deserve to win" argument of no consequence.

The general take on the team is offence first, everyone scores and the defencemen are activated not wailing from the blueline. How ever they actually defend requires some long experience watching them. Carle was a defenceman, as it happens.

Would he be a good choice? Sure. How could he not be? But it seems really unlikely given that contract. Luke Fox at Sportsnet reported this just yesterday, though:

Our understanding is that Carle wants big money and a voice in roster construction if and when he makes the leap to the NHL and already turned down a lucrative offer from Chicago’s Kyle Davidson during the Blackhawks coaching search in 2025.

And if anyone could collaborate with a rookie coach on roster construction, it might well be John Chayka.

Of interest, this video is set to his explanation of how they use sports science at DU.