The Washington Capitals have signed veteran forward Max Pacioretty to a one-year contract valued at $2 million. With history showing Pacioretty can put the puck in the net this could be a smart pickup. But history has also been a struggle for Pacioretty on the injury front.
Max Pacioretty $2M AAV
$1M – 10 games
$500k – 15 games
$500k – 20 games@Capitals— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) July 1, 2023
Max Pacioretty Signs New Contract
Max Pacioretty has earned a new one year, $2 million contract with the Capitals. The former 2007 first-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens is a true goal scorer. After many years with Montreal, including serving as the team’s captain, the Canadiens moved him to the Vegas Golden Knights. From there, the Carolina Hurricanes acquired him last offseason for future considerations. However, a preseason Achilles tendon injury kept Pacioretty off the ice until the start of the calendar year 2023. From there, he would play five games and score three goals. Over that super small sample size, it was a great pace of scoring.
Unfortunately, the injury bug would hit again. Max Pacioretty re-injured his Achilles tendon and was done for the rest of the year. Last season with Las Vegas, he also only got in 39 games due to injury. He did, however, score 19 goals in that time frame. Over his career Pacioretty has been a fairly consistent 30 goal scorer (or on that pace in his shortened seasons) with a 39-goal season in 2012-13. But he also has missed a lot of games over the last few years due to injury. It hasn’t seemed to slow his on-ice production as much as his ability to simply be “on-ice.”
What This Means
The Max Pacioretty contract poses some thoughts. This is sort of a high-risk high-reward signing. If Max Pacioretty can recover from his injuries and get in even half a season, he has shown he could still be a counted-on goal-scoring forward. If he makes it all season and into the playoffs, you could see a true top-tier goal scorer. However, these are a lot of ifs. Injuring an Achilles tendon back-to-back like Pacioretty did creates very realistic possibilities of him not playing consistently again or not being able to play at the level to which he is accustomed. But this may be a risk worth taking. Top goal scorers don’t exactly grow on trees. This is also a chance for Pacioretty to show he still can play in the NHL and that his injury past is the past. It will be interesting to see how it works out for the team and Pacioretty.
Main Photo: © James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
