{"id":36933,"date":"2025-08-01T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/36933\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:42:08","slug":"free-agent-profile-max-pacioretty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/36933\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Agent Profile: Max Pacioretty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite registering multi-goal seasons (six of those being 30-goal campaigns) for the bulk of his NHL career, veteran winger Max Pacioretty<\/a> can no longer be relied upon as a primary scorer, nor a secondary one. Essentially, since his second Achilles tendon tear in mid-January of the 2022-23 season with the Carolina Hurricanes, Pacioretty has been a shell of the player he once was.<\/p>\n

Still, despite a down season (for his standards) with the Washington Capitals throughout the 2023-24 campaign, Pacioretty turned a professional tryout agreement into a bonus-laden deal with the Maple Leafs last summer. Unfortunately for his earning power, Pacioretty spent much of his year on the injured reserve, scoring five goals and 13 points in 37 contests, averaging 13:30 of ice time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He turned things around during a brief playoff stretch, scoring three goals and eight points in 11 games while averaging 12:51 of ice time. Hindsight being 20\/20, Pacioretty\u2019s strong postseason performance wasn\u2019t good enough to earn him a guaranteed contract early on this summer, but he did finish fourth on the Maple Leafs in playoff scoring ahead of John Tavares<\/a> and Matthew Knies<\/a>. Pacioretty hasn\u2019t given any indication this summer that he\u2019s ready to hang up his skates, as he believes he has a little more left in the tank to offer a contending team.<\/p>\n

Stats<\/p>\n

2024-25:\u00a037 GP, 5 G, 8 A, 13 PTS, -2, 16 PIMS, 70 shots, 13:30 ATOI, 48.4 CF%
Career:\u00a0939 GP, 335 G, 346 A, 681 PTS, +53, 80 PIMS, 3,048 shots, 17:16 ATOI, 53.4 CF%<\/p>\n

Potential Suitors<\/p>\n

It\u2019s already public information that Pacioretty would like to be close to southeastern Michigan, where he spent his collegiate hockey days with the University of Michigan Wolverines, and where he and his family reside in the off-season (the latter lives there year-round). Assuming Toronto is no longer interested in retaining Pacioretty, only two options remain.<\/p>\n

The Columbus Blue Jackets would be the next closest option outside of the Detroit Red Wings, being approximately 80 miles closer to his family than the Maple Leafs offered. There is a pending trade request from Columbus\u2019s Yegor Chinakhov<\/a>, making Pacioretty a potential stopgap if they don\u2019t get another winger in a hypothetical trade.<\/p>\n

While the Red Wings have seemingly addressed their need for a veteran winger this offseason by signing James van Riemsdyk<\/a>, they have also realized that they cannot rely on consistent offensive production from anyone other than Lucas Raymond<\/a>. Even as a veteran with postseason experience, Pacioretty may even resign to a plug-and-play role, being a healthy scratch most nights unless needed for additional offense, if only for a chance to play closer to his family.<\/p>\n

Projected Contract<\/p>\n

Although he doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019s playing yet, Pacioretty should know exactly what kind of contract he\u2019s getting. Due to the consistent injury concern, Pacioretty should only receive a one-year deal with a salary between $775K and $850K. The signing team could include a handful of games played bonuses, as did the Maple Leafs, but those may not even be required to give Pacioretty another chance to close out his career on a positive note.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite registering multi-goal seasons (six of those being 30-goal campaigns) for the bulk of his NHL career, veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[3062,64,63,33454,575,11477,85],"class_list":["post-36933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2025-free-agency","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-max-pacioretty","tag-nhl","tag-pro-hockey-rumors-originals","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}