Matt Carle Retires

Defenseman Matt Carle has announced his retirement, the Predators revealed in a press release.  The decision comes after he cleared regular waivers yesterday.  Nashville also placed him on unconditional release waivers earlier this afternoon, reports Adam Vingan of The Tennessean (Twitter link).  That would have permitted the team to terminate his contract to get him off of the cap and their 50-contract limit but this announcement makes that procedural move a moot one.

Carle was bought out by the Lightning in the offseason and signed a one year, $700K deal with the Predators to give them some more blueline depth.  However, he has played in just six games this season and has been a healthy scratch for nearly an entire month.

The 32 year old finishes his career having played parts of 12 NHL seasons with the Sharks, Flyers, Lightning, and Predators.  In 730 games, he had 45 goals and 238 assists while averaging 20:43 of ice time per game.  His 283 points rank third all-time among Alaskan-born NHL players.  Carle was also a frequent visitor to the postseason having played in ten different playoffs; he put up 44 points (6-38-44) in 127 games.

Although he never won a Stanley Cup (he reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2009 with Philadelphia and in 2015 with Tampa Bay), Carle was a two-time NCAA champion and also won the Hobey Baker Award for the best defenseman in college hockey back in 2006 while playing at the University of Denver.

Despite retiring, he’ll still be collecting an NHL paycheck for a little while yet as he’ll receive slightly more than $1.8MM per year from Tampa Bay every year through 2019-20.