Michael Carcone's next Tucson Roadrunners goal will put him in the most rarified of Southern Arizona hockey air. His 24th tally of the year will set the club record for most goals by a player in a single season.
As it sits right now, though, that won’t come Wednesday night, when the Roadrunners welcome the San Jose Barracuda to Tucson Arena for a 6:30 p.m. faceoff in the first of three games in four days between the teams this week.
Carcone earned his second NHL call-up this week, hitting the lineup Monday night for the injury-plagued Arizona Coyotes alongside Tucson captain Hudson Fasching, defenseman Cam Dineen, and a host of other once and possibly again Roadrunners helping the fill out the Coyotes’ roster of late.
Carcone deflected credit when asked last week about what eventually owning that Roadrunners’ mark will mean to him.
“It’s not possible without the guys in that room and the trust from my coaching staff here,” said the Roadrunners’ alternate captain, whose 38 goals over 81 games these past two seasons with Tucson put him among the top handful of Roadrunners’ scorers all-time, not just this year.
But Carcone is also pretty clear that breaking the record would be No. 2 on his list of personal achievements this season. The first: that first time he skated for the Coyotes, back on Dec. 28, when he threw four shots on net in 10-plus minutes of ice time in his NHL debut.
“(The NHL debut) was super special. I’ll never forget it. I’ll get to tell my kids, and I hope every guy in that room and this league gets to experience it,” he said. “There are surely no words for it, honestly. But I definitely want to keep going and get more games, and hopefully turn it into an NHL career.”
For Carcone, the two moments are intrinsically linked, too — right alongside his recall to Glendale this week.
Without his scoring pace this season, Carcone probably doesn’t get the first NHL look, and certainly wouldn’t have had the second. But it’s the development of the entirety of his game that’s led Coyotes and Roadrunners’ brass to see Carcone as more than a one-dimensional player.
“We always knew Michael could score. We knew he was an offensive threat,” Tucson coach Jay Varady said. “But for me, more importantly as a coach, I love his 200-foot game right now — his ability to play other teams’ top lines and continue to produce offensively.”
Carcone said that was the exact plan he made with Varady and the Roadrunners’ coaches this offseason.
“In previous years, I’ve always just focused so much on my offensive side of my game,” he said. “When you play well defensively, it creates offense,” he added. “And I think it’s been a major improvement in my game. It got me my NHL game this year.”
Who's next?
Entering this week, Carcone is one of seven Roadrunners to make their NHL debut with the Coyotes this season. The rest: Matias Maccelli, who has four points in six games since his call-up earlier this month; fellow forward Ben McCartney; and defensemen Cam Dineen, Dysin Mayo, Vlad Kolyachonok, and JJ Moser.
Coyotes goaltender Karel Vejmelka also made his big-league debut this season, but bypassed playing in Tucson altogether to do so, marking eight different players seeing their first NHL action this season for the Coyotes. The most in team history: nine, set in 2016-17.
So who could be the eighth Roadrunner to make his NHL debut this season? On the surface, maybe there won’t be.
While Varady wouldn’t dive into names, he did mention the possibility of the NHL’s trade deadline being a factor.
Only a handful of current Roadrunners without NHL experience and tied to NHL contracts remain on the roster: Defensemen Cole Hults and Cam Crotty and forwards Ty Emberson, Ryan McGregor and Liam Kirk. Although he may return at some point this year to Tucson’s lineup, McGregor has been out since December with an injury, while Kirk was lost for the season early on.
Carcone said if he had to pick someone, Crotty would be the answer to tie the Coyotes’ record at nine.
“(He’s) been unbelievable for us in the back end, not only on the ice, but off the ice. He’s shown a lot of leadership,” Carcone said. “He’s so well-spoken, and he’s earned a lot of my respect this year, and a lot of the older guys.”
Prosvetov plays well in defeat
While the Roadrunners have had a hard time getting back into the win column of late — they’re winless in March, and 0-4-2-0 over their last six games overall — goaltender Ivan Prosvetov appears to be improving.
After failing to post a .900 or better save percentage in 14 straight appearances spanning two full calendar months, Prostetov has beat that mark twice in his last four outings.
That includes a perfect 23-of-23 performance in 36 minutes of relief work against Bakersfield on March 5, and stopping 33 of 36 (.917) Saturday in a 3-2 loss at Texas. He was nearly as good the next day, stopped 22 of 25 in a 3-2 overtime loss, also on the road to the Stars.
Prosvetov stopped 24 of the first 25 shots he faced on March 2 against the Ontario Reign before the Reign inexplicably scored twice with their goalie pulled, and again in overtime, to turn a two-goal Tucson lead into a 4-3 Reign win in a span of about three minutes.
“He’s getting in the net,” Varady said. “He’s battling through it.”
