Florida Panthers: Dodging the Bullet that is Max Pacioretty

Thankfully, the Florida Panthers gave up on trying to acquire Max Pacioretty.

For the past few years, one of the obstacles holding back the Florida Panthers was their lack of depth scoring. Their offense was primarily coming from the top line and every once in a while their second line, too.

Pig flight was more likely than offensive production from their bottom-six, and the management team for the Cats recognized this issue and decided to take action.

They recently began their scouting around the league for not a center (as that issue had already been assessed), but a scoring threat on the wing.

Panthers GM Dale Tallon peeked across the league for possible candidates, narrowing everything down to two viable acquisitions: Mike Hoffman and Max Pacioretty.

When the Panthers approached the Montreal Canadiens and their GM Marc Bergevin, there was a series of heated debates between the two organizations.

While the Panthers wanted to give up a few draft picks and a mediocre player or prospect, the Canadiens wanted the one prospect that was destined to be inserted on the Panthers’ third line center spot. They wanted the Finnish University of Denver All-Star, Henrik Borgström.

This was obviously way more than the Panthers wanted to give up, as Borgström was a huge piece for the future of the Cats.

As the two teams kept the debate going, they realized it wasn’t going anywhere. As a result, the two teams dropped out of the conversation of a Pacioretty to Florida trade and they each pursued other routes.

Making the first move, on June 19th, 2018, Mike Hoffman moved around North America in a span of three hours.

After being traded to the San Jose Sharks, the trade was announced to be a three-way deal, as the 29-year-old scoring winger had a new destination in place: Florida.

This was exactly what the Panthers needed, an incredible scorer to place on the wing to increase scoring production, while only having to give up some draft picks to keep their current roster intact.

A few months later, on September 10th, 2018, the Canadiens had a transaction of their own to announce, involving their captain of course.

They declared that they had sent forward Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for Tomas Tatar and a few other prospects and picks.

This was groundbreaking for Vegas, as they had already acquired Paul Stastny to center their second line, and Pacioretty was ready for his first American campaign.

As the season began, surprises were happening all around the league, starting with the Montreal Canadiens. While they had just given up their captain for a few mediocre players in return, Montreal was doing nothing but excelling in expectations.

Tomas Tatar, an extra player thrown in by Vegas, has so far led his new team to an unexpected playoff spot. He also happens to be third on his team in scoring.

Across North America in Sin City, Pacioretty has not performed to the expectations of the Golden Knights, along with the rest of the team.

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While their team as a whole has struggled, Pacioretty has somewhat done the same, posting only eight goals and five assists in twenty-two games played. Even though little time has passed, Pacioretty has proven so far that he isn’t worth his paycheck.

Back to the Cats, of course. GM Dale Tallon and company had proven they did their homework and made the right decision.

Through a short period of time, Hoffman has already broken the Panthers franchise record of longest point streak with seventeen games, while also managing to lead the team in scoring. He’s everything that the organization expected and more, making the front office seem smarter than Einstein (*no pun intended*).

After the summer, many faces around the league had arrived in new places, ready for the next step in their NHL careers.

Although Tatar and Hoffman continue to take new steps in their new respective settings, Pacioretty has found it tougher settling into his new surroundings. As the season progresses, we’ll see how these guys continue with their new squads.

Following plenty of rumors of Florida’s possible acquisition of Max Pacioretty, it has so far shown that they made the correct choice in cancelling their pursuit.