Quoting: Subbanator7667
Once again man, you only go to one season for a comparison. Trots would love Patches, Pacioretty is very good playing both ways and also makes plays, tends to get almost as many assists as goals.
I think Pacioretty will have a similar next couple years to Blake Wheeler. Pacioretty actually has had better stats then Wheeler until the last 3 seasons, the difference was that Wheeler had Scheifele become his center. Pacioretty hasn’t gotten that center yet, him with Backstrom becomes a 40 goal 80 point player.
Burakovsky will get a shot this year with the new coach, but if he doesn’t perform, I don’t know how Washington says no to this trAde at the deadline.
I agree that Trotz would love Patches, and I think the Islanders are a team more likely to make a desperate push to make the playoffs than the Caps this year, so definitely talk to them about him.
Now that the Caps are coached by Todd Reirden, I'm pretty optimistic that Andre Burakovsky stops being a healthy scratch, and becomes a regular top six forward, meaning he'll go from having Lars Eller as his center to having Nick Backstrom as his center. I can see how that would lead to an improvement for Pacioretty. Can you see how it would lead to the same improvement for Burakovsky? Burakovsky's 17 point year actually came with an unproven rookie named Evgeny Kuznetsov as his center, so that's always an option, too, if he earns his way up there. I predict Pacioretty gets 25 goals this year, with a decent center and 1st power play time, wherever he lands, and Burakovsky gets 27 goals if he plays with Backstrom all year and gets steady time on a 2nd power play unit. After that, Burakovsky is a 24 year old RFA who costs 4M a year for eight years, whom the Caps can easily afford, and Pacioretty is a 30 year old UFA who costs 8M a year for eight years on the open market, and whom no team can reasonably afford, especially not one that already has two thirty-something thirty-goal guys. If the Caps make big trades, they need to be selling off leadership and banking cap space, not the opposite.
I think Pacioretty is still a very good player, who most likely just had one weak year. I thought the same think about Erat, who actually was team captain this winter, in his third Olympic appearance. Shhh. Don't tell Caps fans. They think the wheels came off just because he didn't get top six minutes in Washington and didn't bounce back up to the 50 points he used to get on a 1st line in Nashville when he played third line in DC. He was still an okay checking forward, but the fans turned on him for not being Forsberg.... if Burakovsky plays top line in Montreal, though, and top power play, and gets thirty goals next year, and the year after, and the year after, while Pacioretty gets 25 goals in Washington and then leaves in free agency, then at least McLellan got to win a Cup first.