Trade Grades: Assessing Max Pacioretty to the Carolina Hurricanes

The Carolina Hurricanes have acquired left winger Max Pacioretty and defenseman Dylan Coghlan to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for future considerations.

It's the second big trade the Hurricanes have made today, after trading for defenseman Brent Burns from the San Jose Sharks.

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Carolina Hurricanes

Even at 33 years old, Max Pacioretty still managed to rack up 19 goals and 18 assists for 37 points in an injury-shortened season that saw him play in just 39 games. He had 154 points in 158 with Vegas over the last three seasons.

His underlying numbers are nothing to sneeze at as well, spotting a 54.6 Corsi For percentage and 54% of Expected goals per Natural Stat Trick in 2021-22.

Pacioretty is as close as you can get to a bonafide goal scorer in the NHL. Six times in his career he's scored over 30 goals, including four straight seasons from 2013-14 to 2016-17 with the Montreal Canadiens.

Despite his age, it's clear he's still an effective player and he's going to a clear Stanley Cup contender in Carolina. Whether the counting stats keep up is yet to be determined, as he has Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov above him now on the depth chart.

But the depth the Hurricanes can now feature up front is truly ridiculous.

Dylan Coghlan is also a solid player, finishing the season with the third best CF% at 5v5 among eligible Vegas defensemen. A right-shot defenseman, those are always valued around the league as evidenced by some of the deals in free agency today.

Carolina is listed at +1500 to win the Stanley Cup over at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Trade Grade: A

Vegas Golden Knights

The fact that the Golden Knights were only able to get future considerations (aka an IOU) for this package goes to show you how depressed the forward trade market is in the NHL and how desperate the Golden Knights were to clear cap space.

With the team in a cap crunch and reportedly interesting in re-signing Reilly Smith, they needed to shed salary and fast. Pacioretty and his one year left at a $7 million dollar cap hit made the most sense.

Make no mistake, this was a pure cap dump by Vegas. If not for their cap situation, they would have never given up on a pure goal scorer like Pacioretty for pennies on the dollar.

That Coghlan was thrown in as a sweetener makes this trade go from bad to truly terrible.

Despite this trade, sportsbooks still love the Golden Knights with a uniform price of +1400 across DraftKings, FanDuel Sportsbook, and Caesars Sportsbook.

Trade Grade: D

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