Carle For Coach: David Carle Emerges as Top Candidate for Blackhawks Head Coaching Job

The holidays are always a beautiful time of year for many people. Spending time with family and friends is always on the top of the priority list. However, the holidays bring another annual event to televisions everywhere. Every year, the World Juniors take place, drawing in the attention of hockey fans during the holidays.

This season, the United States did the unthinkable and repeated as gold medalists. A thrilling 4-3 win in overtime over Finland helped secure a second consecutive gold medal. 

Notable amongst the success experienced by USA Hockey is the success of their head coach. David Carle has led Team USA to back-to-back gold medals and has had an outstanding amount of success at the University of Denver, where the Pioneers captured the national title in 2024.

According to Chris Peters of FloHockey, Carle may be a generational coaching prospect in the world of hockey. Now, the term ‘generational’ is thrown around too much in a hockey sense, but Carle has experienced success everywhere, and at a young age, in the world of hockey.

Aside from the two gold medals with Team USA, Carle had a .690 winning percentage entering the season in his tenure at University of Denver. He took over as head coach at age 28 and has just recently turned 35. He’s young, understands today’s culture of hockey player, and could be perfect for a young and upcoming Chicago Blackhawks team.

As Peters noted in his piece, Carle has the ability to be picky because he is young and in a good situation. However, if Kyle Davidson could convince Carle to lead the Blackhawks into the future, it could be a franchise-altering move. Sure, a first-time head coach is scary for the Blackhawks (see Jeremy Colliton and Luke Richardson) but giving Carle a call for an interview is the bare minimum.

Davidson would need to really convince Carle that the Blackhawks job is meant for him while clearly laying out the rebuild for proper buy-in, but a young coach like Carle might be just what this new-look Blackhawks team, led by young players like Connor Bedard, Alex Vlasic, and Frank Nazar, needs.

Perhaps its a long shot, but Davidson needs to at least get Carle to Chicago for an interview for their vacant head-coaching position.