Per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Carolina Hurricanes are acquiring Max Pacioretty and Dylan Coghlan from the Vegas Golden Knights in a blockbuster trade. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that the return to Vegas is nothing but future considerations.
Pacioretty, 33, has just one year left on his contract and carries a cap hit of $7MM. The Golden Knights are not retaining any of that, meaning they’ve cleared a huge chunk of space for their other moves. Still, this move appears to be a stunning example of poor asset management for the Golden Knights.
In 2018, the team traded a first, second, and third-round pick for Tomas Tatar at the trade deadline. After playing just 28 total games for the team, they then included Tatar in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens to acquire Pacioretty. Along with Tatar went recently drafted Nick Suzuki and another second-round pick, while the Canadiens retained just ten percent of Pacioretty’s contract. The Golden Knights then signed the former Montreal captain to a four-year, $28MM extension before he had even played a game for them, a contract that they are now sending along with 24-year-old defenseman Dylan Coghlan for no return.
They did receive parts of four seasons from Pacioretty in the interim, though his time in Vegas has been marred by injuries. He played just 39 games this season, a big part of why the Golden Knights eventually missed the playoffs.
Still, the Hurricanes are getting an impact goal-scoring talent, if the veteran forward can stay healthy enough next season. In his career, Pacioretty has 323 goals in 850 games, an 82-game pace of over 31. For nothing but cap space, it is a worthwhile move for general manager Don Waddell, who also landed veteran Brent Burns earlier today.
Carolina is obviously pushing some of their chips to the middle, though it’s important to note that this isn’t a long-term gamble. Pacioretty will be an unrestricted free agent next summer and off the books for the Hurricanes if it doesn’t work out.
For Vegas, this opens enough space to sign Reilly Smith, while the team also has the Shea Weber LTIR flexibility to work with.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Canes are making the day fun…
I’ll take a random guess that Necas is part of the return? We’ll see.
Nope, Freddy Charles.
This is actually a trade that should get vetoed by the league. Not kidding.
The cap is such a joke now that they won’t, but…
As a Canes fan, I’m not complaining.
As a hockey fan, this is concerning.
@forwhomjoshbelltolled – Get the feeling that somebody in the Desert was pissed at my “trade of consequence” statement?
It’s time that we fold the Golden Knights experiment.
Naw they just need to remove some of the top heavy contracts they have and get some depth. They took the Toronto method but on steroids. For a minute there it was like their GM was a fan trying to sign the top FA every year
please no! let them toil a little while longer…
So much for that Pacioretty to Preds rumor, lol!
Canes will be an interesting team next season if nothing else.
A lot riding on the Burns/Patches gamble.
They’ve done it before with Trocheck/TDA, but it sure is risky.
Hahaha future considerations
Another Player that didn’t like situation with screwed up top brass running a funny farm…
this has me remembering the ‘Welcome Max’ billboard by the 15/215 split as it sat there for over a year (or so it seemed)… maybe they can afford to put a ‘see ya, max’ billboard in the same spot?
lol Vegas….
This wasn’t a trade, it was an adoption.
How can Gary and Bill pretend this is legal?
I figured a guy like you would love the cap and parity? What’s the real problem here?
Come now. Trades have been made for future considerations for at least the last sixty years. You really want Bettman personally deciding whether each trade is “fair” or not?
I knew we had to shed some cap but dang…
Didn’t expect to create this big hole on our first line.
Was looking forward to building around a Patches, Eichel, Stone line…