The season may still be relatively young, but forward Michael Carcone is having the best offensive campaign the Tucson Roadrunners have ever seen.
And it’s not even all that close.
A year after setting Tucson’s team mark for goals in a single season, Carcone has spent most of early portion of the 2022-23 schedule looking like a reinvented player.
Sure, his own attempts at the net are still up there. But Carcone’s prowess seems to have shifted from prime goal scorer to elite setup man. His assist numbers have climbed as he feeds a bevy of talented newcomers to Tucson’s roster and Carcone, in turn, has raced up the league’s scoring charts.
But what if both versions of the 26-year-old journeyman forward just so happened to manifest themselves at the same time?
Watch out, AHL — and watch out, Roadrunners record books.
Carcone’s hat trick in Tuesday’s 7-2 home win over Coachella Valley was his first multi-goal output of the season ... and the 10th game over the last 12 he has recorded a point.
“It’s such a long season,” Carcone said of the ups and downs that get in the way of a player’s nightly output over a 72-game season. “I talked with Potsie (Roadrunners head coach Steve Potvin) about it all the time: you’re not going to play well for all 72.
“You know, some nights those shots are going to get blocked. Sometimes you’re going hit a post,” he added, noting that on other nights, like Tuesday, “it’s going to go in like it did tonight.”
Following the hat trick, his fourth in three years as a Roadrunner, Carcone entered the weekend as one of just two AHL players in the league’s top 10 in goals (11), assists (20), and points (31). His 31 points are tied for second overall.
Should Carcone keep up this torrid pace, he’ll not only break his own goal scoring mark but he’ll set the Roadrunners’ record for assists in a season, too.
Carcone would also be the first Roadrunner by a country mile to top 100 points in a season. The club mark is 67, set by Chris Mueller in the team’s inaugural year of 2016-17.
Last year’s Roadrunners wunderkind, Matias Maccelli, averaged 1.21 points per game while turning heads his first season of pro hockey in North America. With Maccelli in his first full season with the Arizona Coyotes, it’s Carcone who is leading the way offensively. He’s averaging 1.47 points per outing. Even legendary Tucson skaters like current Toronto Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting never came close to the rate Carcone is producing — and that includes both goals and points.
Bunting owns the club’s career records for goals, assists and points, but Carcone is climbing fast. Carcone is already third on the Roadrunners career goal-scoring charts, and more than half-way to Bunting’s career points mark of 180. Bunting set that total playing in 260 games over five seasons with the Roadrunners. Carcone has skated for Tucson just 105 times.
And he hasn’t been afraid to get physical, either. Carcone’s second fight of the season came against Coachella Valley a day after his hat trick. The resulting penalty minutes put him in the Roadrunners all-time top-10 in that category, too.
“For him to play the way he has this season is really remarkable,” Potvin said. “He shows up with so much intent.
“When he comes to the rink with the intention of playing hard and playing with a little grit and a little tenacity, he’s hard to stop.”
League-wide, that century mark for points has been hit just once in the last 12 years. Andrew Poturalski, then of the Chicago Wolves, did it last year. Poturalski, the two-time defending AHL scoring champ, just so happens to be leading the way for a new team this season — Coachella Valley, the same team Carcone lit up for the hat trick.
Those same Firebirds will open their new, nearly-10,000-seat Palm Springs-area arena on Sunday night. Their opponent? The Roadrunners, naturally.
The odds that Carcone matches Poturalski’s 102 points from last season are slim, though.
It was a year ago this week that saw Carcone earn his first true in-season NHL call-up. He made his debut for the Coyotes on Dec. 28 before returning to Tucson. Carcone went back up again late in the season, skating 21 times in all for the Coyotes to go along with his 48 games in Tucson.
The still-rebuilding Coyotes may elect to give Carcone another extended call-up.
“I think that was the key for Mike,” Potvin said of Carcone’s NHL time making him an even better AHL player this season. “Now he’s got a greater depth of belief that he can play and can be a factor each and every night.
“I think in the past, when he was feeling good, that’s when he was great. And, you know, when he wasn’t feeling it, sometimes it was a little bit more of a difficult game for him,” Potvin added. “But now we’re just seeing so much more consistency and I think that has to do with more of a pro mindset and a guy that believes he can be play in the NHL and be a contributor in the NHL.”
Thousands of stuffed animals rained down on the Tucson Arena ice on Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022 as part of the Tucson Roadrunners' "Teddy Bear Toss" game. Roadrunner forward Travis Barron scored the team's first goal of the night in the second period of a 3-2 overtime loss -- that first goal serving as the signal to the 5,171 in attendance to throw the stuffed animals they brought on to the ice. The Roadrunners plan to donate the toys to Aviva Children's Services, who will distribute them throughout Pima County during the holiday season. Video by James Kelley/Special to the Arizona Daily Star
