Without knowing what his ultimate contract will be – and it sure seems like an eventual contract is guaranteed – it's hard to judge right now how good an idea this is. But the rumours say a one-year deal will be in the offing, so I'm not seeing a high risk to this idea.

But who is Max Pacioretty, the potential #67 on the Leafs?

History

Pacioretty is two people: the man he used to be and the man he is now. True for many of us, but for him it's the key point that needs to be understood. However, who he was has some bearing on his late-stage career.

Pacioretty, who turns 36 this November, was drafted 22nd overall in 2007. That was quite the draft, and with his injury history, Pacioretty is 13th in games played amongst players drafted that year. Most of the players with more are still active, but time and injuries have caught up with Jake Voracek and Wayne Simmonds. In terms of points, he's sixth from that draft, so he's made the most of his time in the NHL.

Pacioretty is Amercian, although he's played a lot of years in Canada beginning in 2008 with the Canadiens and then in the AHL in Hamilton. A left winger pretty much exclusively, he has 330 goals in the NHL and 338 assists, giving a very succinct description of his mix of skills and a hint about the quality of his linemates over the years in the NHL.

He had three years in Montréal from 2014 through 2017 where he played a full season and hit his peak in points, 67, twice. This is his max value as a player:

What this shows is his status as of that date, not his results in that season. Pacioretty was creating offence – not just scoring or getting points, and it was very, very valuable offence. He wasn't much on the power play, and for a winger to be even close to zero in terms of defence is good. His PK skills were real.

His offensive value breakdown (the centre section of the chart) is almost entirely five-on-five offence creation, the bread-and-butter of hockey. Of note: he finished well, and that might need some numbers to make sense of. Using the old-fashioned Sh% based on SOG, his was 13, 10, 8 and 11 starting in 2013. Very above average overall.

He scored 17 goals over expected over those four years, which is very good. HockeyViz shows him as a very nearly elite top-liner over those seasons.

In 2018, Montréal traded him to Vegas, and after a first rough season (where he still scored 22 goals), he settled in and became a better offensive value than you usually get from a player in their 30s.

He suffered several injuries in Vegas, including a broken wrist and foot in his final season there.

Vegas traded him to Carolina in a very Vegas cap clearing move in 2022, and this is where the big problems began for him. He tore his Achilles in preseason and had surgery. He played in January 2023 for five games and then tore the same Achilles. That was if for his Hurricanes career.

The New Repaired Pacioretty

Because Pacioretty played so few games in 2022-2023, he was eligible for a contract the next season with performance bonuses. He signed a deal that gave him $2 million in salary plus games played bonuses that got him to $4 million if he played in 20 games. He hit the ice in January, a full year after his last game, and he ended up in 47 games for the Capitals as well as their blink-and-you-miss-it playoff run of four games against the Rangers.

Pacioretty only scored four goals in the regular season, but he had 19 assists which given the low number of games played is actually in line with his career patterns. No longer on the top line, he was usually the third-line left wing. HockeyViz still rates him as a five-on-five offence creator, but modestly at 5% over league average unlike the stellar 17% above from his prime years. His finishing deserted him as his two five-on-five goals came on 7 Expected Goals. These numbers are small, and the games played coupled with the minutes per game of 12 means bigger fluctuations from his career norms are likely. It's hard to know what's the new man and what's "shit happens", but I struggle to believe an Achilles injury suddenly makes you shoot at 3%. However, that wrist break back in Vegas looms over these numbers.

There is no way at all to know why that shooting % number is what it is.

His individual shot rate was a little low, but not abnormal for someone playing a third line role. Shot rate is usually very consistent for a player, and Pacioretty has usually hit 20 iCF/60, but the 15 per 60 he shot last year matches his first not-good Vegas season. His shot location was not as good as it used to be, but the difference between Vegas and Washington is pretty stark in terms of opportunities to generate offence or shots from down the lineup but Pacioretty was less helpful at that than he used to be.

The interesting thing is that in Vegas and Washington, he developed a useful power play game by HockeyViz's isolates, and you'll be forgiven if you wonder if the Habs were just bad at this back in the day, and he was suddenly on a better team and able to use his ability to add value where he used to just do no harm.

On the Leafs

There's only one real answer here: who knows. He's over 35, and he's not getting better in a general way, but he may well be better as more recovery time has helped his mobility.

The Leafs are unlikely to want to put him on the top-six unless he suddenly reverts to form of a few years back, so what could he bring on a third line, where mobility might not be as important and the competition is not as strong? Some goals, some offence generation beyond what you'd usually get in that part of the lineup. And let's not forget veteran presence which we'll hear about endlessly. I'll concede that a guy his age giving it all he's got is at least a goad to younger players, but not much more than that.

We'll have to wait to find out if he's going to work out well or not.

Free Agents and Contracts