Barely nine months ago, Mike Carcone was every bit a hockey vagabond — left off his team’s NHL training camp roster and waiting to be told where he’d play the pandemic-shortened season.
No matter where Carcone ended up, it was certain to be his fourth American Hockey League team over less than three full seasons.
The Tucson Roadrunners open their 2021-22 season on Friday, and it’s Carcone who portends to be one of the offensive centerpieces of a club has all the pieces to compete in the AHL’s loaded nine-team Pacific Division and perhaps challenge for a Calder Cup, too.
The veteran forward can’t fully explain how his hockey career flipped its script over the last nine months. But he’s not questioning it, either.
“I think everything just kind of worked out for me in having good people to deal with every day and just being treated like I was part of their organization,” said the 25-year-old Carcone.
Carcone wasn’t technically part of the Coyotes/Roadrunners organization last season, even though he played 35 games for Tucson, finishing with a team-high 15 goals. He was property of the NHL’s Nashville Predators, who loaned him to Tucson when their top affiliate, the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, elected not to play the 2020-21 season. The Predators’ top prospects spent the season with the Chicago Wolves.
Southern Arizona was, by comparison, Siberia.
“I could have just kind of packed it in and been like, ‘Oh, this sucks. No one wants me. I’m not part of this organization’ or anything like that,” Carcone said. “I think just keeping my eyes focused on the day-to-day things and being part of Arizona’s group (last season), I think that’s what really just kept me straight.”
And as the season wore on, Carcone’s internal compass pointed to where he wanted to be for the next season.
“I told them at the end of last year that I wanted to be back here. The city’s great. My family enjoys it. To just put everything together it was a no-brainer,” he said, listing off the relationships he’s made with teammates and others within the organization, specifically coaches Steve Potvin and John Slaney, athletic trainers Bill Nervig and Jordan Ellis, strength coach Parker Poor and communications head Adrian Denny. “That all made (coming back) really easy.”
Carcone and the Coyotes agreed to a one-year, two-way contract this summer. The deal included an invitation to NHL training camp, his first in nearly two years. Carcone, his fiancée, Mia, and their two young children lived together in Scottsdale as he prepped for this season. And they’re together again now, in Tucson.
“It was definitely much easier this year,” Carcone said, adding that his 2-year-old loves to skate and is learning about the game. “He just wants to go out on the ice every day.”
Carcone and Roadrunners coach Jay Varady, who returns this year after spending last season as an assistant on the Coyotes’ bench, did not interact much last season. But after watching Carcone in Coyotes camp, and in the Roadrunners’ follow-up in Tucson ahead of Friday’s opener, Varady knows what he has in his returning sharpshooter.
Tucson’s Mike Carcone can’t get the puck past the kick of Texas goalie Tomas Sholl in the third period of their March 5 game at Tucson Arena.
“It’s about finding players we know. We know how he’s going to come to the rink,” Varady said. “We know he has an offensive side to his game and, let’s be honest, it’s important to score goals — especially when we have a young lineup that’s developing offensively.”
Steve Potvin, who spent last season as Tucson’s head coach but will back up Varady as the Roadrunners’ associate head coach this season, said Carcone was every bit a Roadrunner last season — even though he was under contract with another organization. And, Potvin said, Carcone is every bit the type of player the Coyotes and Roadrunners wanted to have on board. Carcone’s 285 career AHL regular-season games ranks first among all Roadrunners. He’s played in more Calder Cup playoff games — 18 over two postseason runs with Uitca and Toronto — than every other Roadrunners combined. Carcone lead this year’s team in games played, goals (65), assists (73) and points (141) at the AHL level.
“When we were looking at our roster, and we’re looking at players that can contribute offensively and also guide and steer these guys to a level that we’re aiming to get to and that they’re trying to get,” Potvin said. “It seemed like a really good fit. He and his family are excited to come back. There was no real bartering. He saw that it was a good fit.”
Carcone’s signing puts him in prime position for another career moment: His NHL debut.
The Coyotes in a full-blown rebuild this season, meaning roster moves are inevitable. The likelihood of a minor-league veteran getting an NHL call-up would appear more likely on a team like the Coyotes than if Carcone had signed with some other clubs.
“If I were a player in his shoes, I’d look at our current situation and I would see opportunity,” Potvin said of Carcone’s NHL chances. “I would be very motivated for that possibility.”
