09/12/23: The Vegas Golden Knights have made Comtois’ professional try-out official.
09/12/23: TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie reported today that Comtois is currently in Las Vegas this week, and that “you have to expect” that Comtois’ PTO signing with the Golden Knights will be confirmed this week.
There still hasn’t been any official word from Vegas as to whether the former Ducks 16-goal scorer will join the Golden Knights for training camp and preseason. But at this point, there has been enough reporting and smoke around this signing to confidently believe that a PTO is indeed coming.
09/01/23: The Vegas Golden Knights are reportedly set to offer winger Max Comtois a professional tryout contract, as initially reported by BPM Sports’ Marc-Olivier Beaudoin. The former Anaheim Duck did not receive a qualifying offer from the team before the June deadline, making him an unrestricted free agent.
Before the Ducks cut their 2017 second-round pick loose, Comtois had posted 38 goals, 48 assists and 86 points in 210 games. The 24-year-old broke out to lead the Ducks in scoring during the shortened 2020-21 campaign, recording 16 goals and 33 points in 55 games. Things haven’t gone nearly as well in the two seasons since, however. In the 116 games following that breakout year, he’s recorded just 35 points despite more than twice the games played while posting an abysmal -37 rating. However, the latter is more the fault of the team around him than poor individual defensive effort.
The Quebec-born forward plays with an edge to his game and has a solid finishing touch with a career 12.8 shooting percentage. However, consistency and play-driving remain issues, and he’ll need to demonstrate that he’s made some strides in those areas during camp to earn a deal with Vegas.
Should he crack the Golden Knights roster, there would be some opportunity for him in their top nine. He’ll compete directly with Paul Cotter, Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden for a left-wing spot alongside William Karlsson or Chandler Stephenson on the team’s second or third line. There’s solid potential for his offensive totals to climb if he ends up on the same line with Stephenson and captain Mark Stone.
Theoretically, the Golden Knights could sign Comtois to a one-year deal up to around the $1.5MM mark and remain cap-compliant to start the season. CapFriendly projects Vegas with $851,653 in cap space entering the season with a full roster and Robin Lehner on long-term injured reserve, so they’d need to assign a player to the minors regardless of cap considerations to sign Comtois.
Well worth a roll of the dice. I can see Comtois and Dorofeyev as Vegas regulars this season. I’m a big fan of Comtois, I hope he finds it.
Nah, this guy actually DOES stink.
Guess He finally understood. This was his only option. No guaranteed contract.
Comtois was overrated coming out of the QMJHL and that hasn’t changed.
An absolute steal. Ducks asleep at the wheel again.
It’s starting to look like the possibility of Howden and Comtois being on the wrong end of the 2018 Team Canada scandal. The Watergate investigation didn’t even take this long. Clarity on the whole thing is long overdue.