Maple Leafs confirm bad news on Max Pacioretty.
Maple Leafs veteran forward Max Pacioretty will be out for a while after suffering an injury this weekend.
The Toronto Maple Leafs got a scare on Saturday night when veteran forward Max Pacioretty, a player with a very ugly injury history, appeared to suffer a significant injury to his left leg. Unfortunately on Monday morning, the Maple Leafs confirmed that it was indeed bad news for Pacioretty.
According to an official update from the Maple Leafs department of public relations, Pacioretty will be out for some time and is being listed as week to week with a lower body injury. The Maple Leafs have however only placed Pacioretty on injured reserve, and not long term injured reserve, which may be an indication that they expect him back before the mandatory 10 games (or 24 days) that he would be required to miss on long term injured reserve.
Pacioretty went down awkwardly on the ice with what appeared to be a non-contact injury and immediately appeared to be favoring his left leg. Pacioretty was clutching at his leg and immediately signaled to the bench after going down, and had to be helped off the ice and down the tunnel as he was unable to put weight down on his injured leg.
It is unclear exactly what kind of injury Pacioretty has suffered, but there are serious concerns given his injury history.
Over the course of the past 4 seasons Pacioretty has appeared in a total of just 104 NHL games, a frankly shocking number when you consider the fact that 4 full seasons represents 328 potential NHL games for a player appearing in every game.
Hopefully this will not turn into another one of those situations, but it certainly explains why the Maple Leafs took precautions with his contract. Pacioretty receives a base salary of just $873,770 on his current deal with a significant portion of his contract value tied up in performance bonuses related to his number of games played. Pacioretty has already earned an additional $313,115 for appearing in 10 games this season, but the second bonus in his contract, which also comes in at $313,115, requires him to appear in 35 regular season games. That bonus may now be in doubt depending on the severity of this latest injury.
