By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
He’s not quite ready to negotiate his own contract like Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty did (eight years, $88 million extension), but Vegas Golden Knights forward Ryan Carpenter is a former accounting major at Bowling Green who might like to dabble in numbers after he hangs up his skates.
“I trust my agent,” Carpenter quipped to LVSportsBiz.com Friday when he turned 28.
Carpenter, a gritty, two-way forward claimed by the Golden Knights Dec. 13, 2017 after San Jose placed him on waivers the day before, has a finance background at Bowling Green.
The college has a VGK connection — Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee played at Bowling Green State University 1978-82, winning the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey’s best player. (VGK prospect Brandon Kruse also currently plays for Bowling Green and has been nominated for the 2019 Hobey Baker Award after he was selected in the fifth round (135th overall) of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft by the VGK.)
Carpenter chatted with LVSportsBiz.com about his finance and accounting background at Bowling Green. If he wasn’t playing hockey, the Orlando, Florida product who was signed by the San Jose Sharks as an undrafted free agent in March 2014 might have turned out to be a CPA. (He played in his first NHL game with the Sharks Dec. 12, 2015.)
“My aunt and uncle are CPAs,” Carpenter said at his locker after a noontime practice at City National Arena in Summerlin.
With an annual salary of $650,000 with the Golden Knights, Carpenter’s 2018-19 earnings are a lot more than the salary of your average CPA. (VGK defenseman Brad Hunt and back-up goalie Malcolm Subban also each make $650,000 in 2018-19.)
“I wish I could play hockey my whole life,” Carpenter said.
The former Bowling Green accounting major decided to pick finance at college because he was a numbers guy growing up in the Orlando suburb of Oviedo. Carpenter uses his accounting skills for budgeting purposes for his family and likes to follow the stock market for investments.
He wasn’t giving away any of his stock tips, joking with a reporter that his advice is to “buy low and sell high.”
Carpenter said after he retires his love for numbers could lead to a post-playing career in analytics, which guide general managers and coaches on player personnel decisions in many sports.
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And if he’s not crunching numbers for analytics, he might be your accountant after his hockey playing days are over.
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Golden Knights tough guy/fan favorite Ryan Reaves is very pleased with his Audi A7, a luxury vehicle that you might be seeing soon in a Reaves tweet with the hard-hitting Golden Knights forward in the photo. Reaves is driving the vehicle courtesy of Audi Henderson.
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LVSportsBiz.com asked Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant about the NHL joining the sports betting bandwagon, with team executives saying that fans have more interest in games when they have a wager on the contest.
Gallant didn’t have much to say except, “The League knows much better about it than me.”
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LVSportsBiz.com will be reporting from Saturday night’s Golden Knights-Pittsburgh Penguins at T-Mobile Arena and look for our “Top of the Escalator” segment on Facebook Live on Alan Snel’s Facebook page.
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Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com publisher/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com if you would like to purchase his recent book, Long Road Back to Las Vegas.