4:03 p.m.: Carcone’s deal is now official and carries a league-minimum cap hit of $775K, according to KSL Sports’ Cole Bagley.
10:23 a.m.: The Mammoth are bringing back unrestricted free agent winger Michael Carcone on a one-year contract, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports.
The move is one of the more surprising of the offseason, considering Carcone was one of the first players in the league to declare he would be testing free agency after the regular season ended. Evidently, there wasn’t considerable interest in him on the open market, and the Mammoth still wanted him around as offensive insurance for their bottom-six forward group.
Carcone, 29, was a longtime AHL fixture but burst onto the scene with the Coyotes in 2023-24, scoring 21 goals in 74 games despite averaging just 11:16 of ice time per contest. The move to Utah wasn’t kind to him, though.
Utah made Carcone a healthy scratch for a larger portion of the campaign, only playing him in 53 games. When he dressed, his shooting percentage had dropped by half from the prior season. He scored only seven goals and 19 points, despite seeing a slight increase in average ice time of 10 seconds when he was in the lineup. Things came to a head late in the season, as Utah chased down a playoff spot, and Carcone only appeared in one of their final 10 games.
There’s no guarantee that Carcone will slot into the opening night lineup in the fall. The Mammoth have acquired and sent away an equal amount of impact forwards, leading to a refreshed but still full-looking group. The 5’9″ winger will be competing with names like the similarly undersized Kailer Yamamoto and enforcer Liam O’Brien for the 12th and final spot in the forward lineup, presumably as their fourth-line left wing, assuming there are no pressing injuries.
Utah will have 46 out of the maximum 50 contracts on the books for next season after registering Carcone’s deal.
Image courtesy of Brad Penner-Imagn Images.
Awkward reunion
This sounds like a “what if the Panthers never signed Carter Verhaeghe” situation…… sometimes it’s about timing I guess.
Spicy Tuna to the Blackhawks for Nolan Allen. The Tanev and Carcone signings portend O’Brien’s exit and the Hawks have very little bite.
Will the Hawks try and trade for Laine?
And to think this “news” made the “Top Stories” section on NHL.com. I’ll bet if they looked hard enough, they could find a short video loop of a captive audience watching paint dry.