The Maple Leafs have made a pair of roster moves heading into tonight’s game against Pittsburgh. The team announced (Twitter link) that winger Max Pacioretty has been activated from LTIR. To make room on the roster, blueliner Jake McCabe was placed on IR retroactive to November 30th.
Pacioretty will wind up missing only the minimum of 10 games since his placement last month when he sustained a lower-body injury against Montreal. The 36-year-old has been limited to just 13 games so far in his first season with Toronto. However, he has been relatively productive in those outings, collecting four goals and two assists despite averaging just 12:11 of playing time per night, a career low.
Pacioretty has already reached the first half of his $626,230 bonus pool when he played in his tenth game of the season early last month. He needs to get to 35 to collect the other half of it so he’ll be looking to stay healthy the rest of the way.
As for McCabe, he has missed the last week due to an upper-body injury sustained against Tampa Bay at the end of November. Thanks to the retroactive placement, he has already missed the required seven days and thus is eligible to be activated as soon as he’s cleared to return.
After putting up a career-high 28 points last season, the 31-year-old earned a five-year, $23.5MM extension back in late October. However, he has been a bit quieter offensively so far this season, collecting just five assists through his first 23 games although he’s averaging a career-best 21:20 in playing time. After being a frequent healthy scratch early on, Philippe Myers has played the last three games in McCabe’s absence.
Still pushing the Pacioretty boulder up the hill.