Grading the Max Pacioretty acquisition

So far the Washington Capitals have mostly made minor league and prospect moves since NHL Free Agency opened. The three big moves they’ve made thus far are trading for Joel Edmundson, re signing Martin Fehervary, and acquiring Max Pacioretty.

While Pacioretty has a chance to resurrect his solid NHL career, Caps fans and the team will have to wait as he won’t be ready for Friday the 13th’s season opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But when he is ready he’ll be looking to contribute to an aging Capitals core trying to return the playoffs under a new head coach.

Pacioretty is a six time 30 goal scorer that is attempting a comeback from a twice torn Achilles tendon. He was signed to a one year contract worth $2 million which Caps brass hopes is a bargain.

He will also get an additional two million in performance bonuses if he plays a certain amount of games.

Recently after the contract was signed the 34 year old who will turn 35 in November (yay scorpios) talked to the media:

"“This was a unique situation for me. I’ve never been a free agent before and obviously coming off an injury, there are a couple of scenarios (regarding) how I could have played it. At the end of the day, I just thought that Washington was a great opportunity for me to come back and prove that I’m still the player that I once was and I’m capable of going back and scoring the goals.”"

Per Cap Friendly, here are the bonuses in Pacioretty’s contract:

$1 million for 10 games played

$500,000 for 15 games played

$500,000 for 20 games played

Grade B-: I give this one a B- but that B will go up on his report card if he can come back from this injury and put up at least 20-25 goals. 30 of course wouldn’t hurt either.