When the Caps signed veteran left wing Max Pacioretty as a free agent on July 1 of this year, they knew they’d need to exercise some patience in waiting for him to return from a second tear of his Achilles’ tendon. In recent days, Pacioretty has taken to the ice for his first few twirls since surgery, and so far, all is going well. The Caps and Pacioretty are hopeful he’ll return soon, though there’s still no public timetable for his return.
In the midst of the Capitals’ Tuesday practice session at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, Pacioretty held a brief and informal press gathering in front of his stall in the team’s locker room. It’s the first time he has spoken with the local media, and he had plenty to say.
“I feel like I’m getting my life back,” says Pacioretty. “I’m having fun. I’ve only skated three times, but this is what I was born to do, so it feels like there’s some normalcy in my life, and I definitely have much more of a smile on my face now that I’m skating.”
Less than two weeks from now, Pacioretty will celebrate his 35th birthday. He has played 855 games over his 15 seasons in the NHL, but since leading the circuit with 71 games played in 2019-20, he has been healthy enough to suit up for only 92 of his teams’ 220 games over the last three campaigns. During that span, he has endured a couple of broken feet, wrist surgery and a pair of torn Achilles’ tendons.
Five games into last season, his Achilles’ tendon snapped for a second time, suddenly sending the winger on an illuminating journey through the vagaries of medical science. Early in his NHL career, Pacioretty worked his way back from a serious back injury, winning the Masterton Trophy in 2012 in the wake of that experience. This second Achilles’ injury was a much more taxing situation.
“I’ve never taken anywhere close to that amount of time off,” says Pacioretty. “It was definitely different going on the ice, but it comes back quickly and I’m starting to feel pretty decent out there, actually. And you mentioned the skates; there's a lot of tweaks and a lot of different things behind the scenes that people are doing to help me, to make sure that I'm able to go out there and perform and to stay healthy. I'm thankful for all the people that are helping me with that.”
Part of Pacioretty’s rehab and his return to the ice involves the use of a special skate boot.
“There’s a couple of things we have to do,” he says. “Obviously, the size of my tendon is significantly different now, so after playing for so long and wearing the same skates for so long, there are significant tweaks you have to make, and it took a little bit of time to get that figured out, but I do feel confident that we have it right.”
A lethal sniper from his first full season in the League when he scored 33 goals for Montreal – the first of six seasons with 30 or more goals – Pacioretty has managed a remarkable total of 46 goals in his last 92 NHL games while dealing with a number of physical ailments. As a guy who always seemed like he could fall out of bed in the middle of the night and score, and a guy who believes he was born to play hockey, times have been tough for Pacioretty of late, but being on the ice again has put him in a good place again.
“There was a good solid two or three months where I was ready to stop playing,” admits Pacioretty. “I've spent a good portion of the last year and a bit in bed, and not being able to do things with my family and my kids, travel to their hockey tournaments, and stuff like that. And for me, that was really difficult.
“But when I do look at the situation and my kids and my family, I don't want to ever say that I gave up on something that I could have continued doing. So it's important for me to do this for myself, but also for my family and my kids to show them that we can get through this together. Like I said, I know I have so much more hockey in the tank. I'm a different person when I'm out there skating, even if it's for 15 minutes without pucks. This is what I was born to do, and I want to do this as long as I can.”
Pacioretty is almost exactly a year younger than Nicklas Backstrom, who last week announced that he is stepping away from the game after more than two years of trying to recover, rehabilitate and rebound from a debilitating hip ailment and subsequent hip resurfacing surgery.
“I will say that it all kind of snowballs,” says Pacioretty of the rash of injuries that have come to the fore in his mid-30s. “The good news is I've seen so many people now, and [I’ve gotten] some good opinions – and the opposite – but I feel like we have a grasp on what has been going on in my career. I've been known to play through injuries, and obviously when you do so, you get a compensation pattern. I dealt with two broken feet in two years, and I think that's when this really all started to happen.
“But in terms of all that and working on my body, I feel like we're in a good place right now. And I feel like the team has been really open to me seeing a lot of people, and trying to find answers, and they've helped a lot with that as well. And I think we're doing a really good job of trying to make sure I come back, and I try and stay healthy.”
As for what’s next in that process, it’s unclear at the moment.
“I'm not entirely sure,” says Pacioretty. “A lot of that is out of my hands. I’m really taking it one day and one skate at a time. The good news is I've responded well to being out there, and whether that means we ramp things up quickly or slowly, that's out of my control. I'm just listening to what I'm being told in terms of that, while giving feedback with how I feel. And the only thing I can say is the good news is that I've responded really well to everything up until this point.”
For a noted sharpshooter like Pacioretty, being off the ice was agonizing, as he notes above. He went nearly a year without unleashing a puck at a net on the ice. But not to worry, kid. For Pacioretty, shooting pucks is like riding a bike.
“It’s funny, I didn’t shoot a puck on the ice for 10 months,” he says. “Everyone was talking and we were laughing that that’s the one thing I don’t think I’ll ever lose. I went out there, and my shot felt just as hard and just as accurate as it’s ever been. Skating and hands, not so much. I told my kids I think it’s probably because of all the hours I put in as a kid, shooting pucks in the garage.
“I’m actually renting Lars Eller’s house, and in the garage he had a little shooting setup there. Originally, that was for the kids, but that kind of turned into me watching them and then shooting pucks on my own as well.”
Part of Pacioretty’s frustration with the injury is the variety of medical opinions he has received while visiting doctors in Finland, Germany, Canada and the U.S. He had to sort through those opinions, and to struggle through times of great uncertainty. But now that his feet have graced the ice once again, he seems to be in a good place mentally.
“I’ve seen a lot of people,” says Pacioretty. “I’ve been all over the world at this point, and that’s the conclusion that they’ve come to and that I’ve accepted. This stuff is not black and white. As much as we’d like medicine to be black and white, I’ve learned that I can go see four doctors and get four different opinions. And for me, that side of it is frustrating, because when you’re younger, you kind of think if you have an injury, this is what you need to do.
“But after my last injury, I did speak to five or six of whom you’d call the best experts in the world, and I got six opinions as to what I need to do to move forward. I was frustrated with that at the time, but it’s all behind me now. Like I keep saying, I feel like we have a really good grasp as to what happened in the past, and what we need to do in the present and the future for me to continue my career, and I do know that I have a lot of hockey left in me.
“There was a time when maybe I wasn’t as confident in that, a time when I didn’t know if I’d play hockey ever again. But I’m coming to the rink every day now thinking that this could be my last day here, and just enjoying it.”
