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Pair of Ducks Players Glow About David Carle, Possible Top Coach Outside NHL

David Carle is the hottest name on the coaching market and is being heralded as the best coach outside the NHL.

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The buzz is certainly warranted and is reaching a fever pitch following his second-consecutive gold medal victory coaching Team USA to a World Junior Championship Gold Medal.

Following a playing career cut short due to a heart condition after being drafted to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the seventh round and before starting his freshman season at the University of Denver in 2008, Carle started his coaching career in the 2008-09 season as a graduate assistant coach.

He was Jim Montgomery's assistant coach in Denver when they won the NCAA Championship in 2017, a team featuring Ducks All-Star forward Troy Terry.

"He deserves all the buzz. I used to do one-on-one skill sessions with him when I was 12 years old, so I've known him forever and he's a great human being," Terry said. "He's someone I look up to as a person.

"Just his hockey mind, the way he sees the game, and the way he delivers his message are great and why he's having so much success. I'm there (in Denver) all summer and I'm with all the guys and I know they really respect him."

Carle earned a promotion to Denver's head coach in 2018 when Jim Montgomery was hired by the Dallas Stars.

He's now won two of the last three NCAA Championships, in 2022 and 2024.

He was hired as head coach of Team USA's World Junior Championship team in 2024, winning his first gold medal with a team featuring tournament co-leading scorer and current Ducks' rookie forward, Cutter Gauthier.

"He was awesome when I was with him, just a super nice guy and down to Earth," Gauthier said of his time playing for Carle. "He really relates to his players and I had a great time learning from him. Great connection there."

It's natural to speculate on when, not if, Carle will make the jump to coach in the NHL. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported on his "32 Thoughts" podcast that Carle received some inquiries from NHL teams after the 2023-24 season.

“Last year, St. Louis interviewed him and considered him," Friedman said. "New Jersey did have a conversation with him. It wasn’t very in-depth. It was more scratching the surface, but they talked to him.”

Carle is only 35 years old and has a young family in Denver, so the urgency to leave for "greener pastures" is minimal.

“I wouldn’t call it a foregone conclusion. There’s a lot of deep meaning for me and my family being here (in Denver),” Carle told Frank Seravalli on his "Frankly Speaking" podcast.

“It would need to be a life-changing opportunity in a lot of ways, but it also needs to be a team with a vision that aligns with what I see as it relates to winning," Carle continued. "Until those kind of possibilities or opportunities present themselves, there’s literally zero rush to leave this job and this community and everything that it’s meant to me and what we’ve helped to do to enhance it and how they’ve helped me in my life.”

Carle is on a generational coaching run and will look to lead Denver to their first back-to-back NCAA Championship titles since 2005 and 2006. They're currently ranked fifth in the nation with a 15-5-0 record.

When the 2024-25 season wraps up, or possibly before then, Carle will likely receive further inquiries about his willingness to leap to the highest level of the sport as several NHL teams will be knocking.

There will be several intriguing situations at his fingertips, but given current circumstances, it's unlikely he will reunite with Terry and Gauthier in Anaheim next season.

Greg Cronin was hired in June of 2023 and is a year and a half into his tenure as head coach of the Ducks. In 2024-25, the team has a 17-20-5 record and a .464 points percentage in the standings, a vast improvement from the 2023-24 season when they finished with a 27-50-5 record and a .360 points percentage.

Things can change quickly in the NHL, so anything is possible. What an almost certainty is that one day Carle will be behind an NHL bench and possibly very soon.

"I just don't understand how, after this, somebody isn't going to make it worth his while," Friedman concluded. "Somebody is going to take a run at him."

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