Most Likely Landing Spots for Max Pacioretty

It's been an eventful stretch for the Vegas Golden Knights.

Based on seeding, they were expected to compete for a summertime Stanley Cup but were instead bumped from the tournament by the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final.

Then free agency arrived and they made the league's biggest-money splash by signing hulking defenseman Alex Pietrangelo to a seven-year pact worth a cool $61.6 million.

Thing is, having that kind of top-heavy payroll setup tends to drain the coffers for everyone else.

In fact, the Golden Knights have spent many subsequent days offloading money to wedge back under the flat $81.5 million salary cap for the supposedly imminent 2021 season.

They're still about a million in the red, which means more austerity is in order. And rumors have begun swirling that high-scoring forward Max Pacioretty is next on the fiscal chopping block.

The 32-year-old is among the league's most proven goal-getters, with six seasons of 30 or more since he became a full-time NHLer with the Montreal Canadiens in 2009. He's scored 54 times in 137 games across two seasons with Vegas, following a trade that sent him west just before the 2018-19 season.

He signed a four-year, $28 million extension just after that deal was made, leaving the Golden Knights on the hook for $17.5 million over the next three seasons unless they come up with a suitable exit strategy.

For the record, Vegas owner Bill Foley said Pacioretty isn't going anywhere.

Nevertheless, the B/R ice hockey team pulled out its ledger and crunched some numbers to compile a list of the most logical destinations if the American winger is indeed sent packing.

Click through to see what we came up with, and drop a line or two with your ideas in the comments section.

Boston Bruins

Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

The Boston Bruins were the NHL's best in the 2019-20 regular season.

But after their playoff run was abruptly ended courtesy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, an ugly four-word question began being making the rounds in New England:

Is the window closing?

Certainly, adding a player of Pacioretty's prowess would tip the needle toward no.

The married father of four was raised in Bruins country and played high school hockey in Connecticut before being drafted by the rival Canadiens. A return home would add another potent weapon to a Boston arsenal that already includes two of the league's top-six point-scorers in David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand.

Pacioretty's existing deal pays him $7 million for the upcoming season, so the Bruins, who are a shade less than $3 million under the cap, would have to send a contract or two back to balance the books.

We'll suggest 24-year-old winger Jake DeBrusk, who's due $3.7 million, and call our accountant.

Florida Panthers

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

It almost sounds biblical, no? 

What free agency taketh away, a trade may yet still giveth.

Or something like that.

Anyway, the Florida Panthers were sixth in the league in scoring last season but saw a significant chunk of that output depart when Evgenii Dadonov (25 goals) signed with the Ottawa Senators. And they seem likely to lose another piece assuming unrestricted free agent Mike Hoffman (29 goals) finds a new home too.

But it's not all bad news.

The removals of Dadonov and Hoffman from the payroll have helped the Panthers slide more than $8 million under the salary cap, which means they could take on Pacioretty's contract—not to mention his career average of 30 goals per season—without the hassle of sending matching dollars back to the desert.

When squaring off against other prospective trade partners, that's one heck of a hole card.

Nashville Predators

Mark Zaleski/Associated Press

Where the Panthers are retooling, the Nashville Predators are full-on remodeling.   

Coach John Hynes will be behind the bench for his first full season after replacing Peter Laviolette in January, and among his most pressing priorities will be enhancing a middle-of-the-pack offense.

The Predators were already 17th of 31 teams in scoring in 2019-20, and more than 10 percent of their 212 goals left town when Nick Bonino (18) was traded to the Minnesota Wild and Kyle Turris (9) was bought out of his contract in Nashville and subsequently signed by the Edmonton Oilers.

Their power play could also use some help after finishing in a tie for 24th overall at 17.3 percent.

Pacioretty would help on those fronts and more, providing an instant sniper and a veteran presence for a team still trying to recapture the magic of a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2017 and a Presidents' Trophy a year later.

Conveniently, the Preds are even more flush with cap space than the Panthers, with a cool $12.9 million left to play with before the well runs dry. Get Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon on the phone and offer to take both Pacioretty and some other bloated paperwork off his books, and then go ahead and start selling the "67" jerseys.

New Jersey Devils

John Locher/Associated Press

The New Jersey Devils are having an identity crisis.   

Not quite contenders but presumably improved from the tie for 25th overall they managed in 2019-20.

Acquiring a player like Pacioretty would surely fast-track the uptick that's been started with first overall selections of Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes at the 2017 and 2019 drafts, alongside the free-agency signing of two-time Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Corey Crawford.

And there's this: No team has more than the nearly $17.2 million in cap flexibility New Jersey possesses.

So no team comes better equipped to ease the Golden Knights' pain, which, even more than the Predators, could mean they take both Pacioretty and another excess player in exchange for appropriate draft picks.

The Golden Knights get leaner. The Devils get better.

And the competition for back pages in the New York tabloids gets a little more intense.

Sounds like a win-win-win.

New York Islanders

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

Of course, when it comes to those tabloids, the New York Islanders might have a comment too.

Coach Barry Trotz's team authored the unlikeliest of summertime playoff runs, knocking off the Panthers, Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers before falling to the eventual champion Lightning in six games.

And it did so after scoring more than just eight teams in the regular season, a paltry 2.82 goals per game.

Pacioretty addresses that issue instantly, and the prospect of him teaming with a core of fleet young talent—read: Barzal, Mathew—would give a long-suffering fanbase at least some cause to clear space for a banner alongside the four from the Bryan Trottier-John Tonelli-Billy Smith glory days of the early '80s.

This one, though, won't be quite so simple on the bookkeeping end.

Because Pacioretty is due $7 million and the Islanders still haven't locked down Barzal as a restricted free agent, it will take some overtime in the accounting department—where $3.9 million in cap space is available—to get things lined up.

But if anyone is capable of finding the right blend of buyouts, send-downs and offloads to make it work, it's GM Lou Lamoriello.

And the payoff could be, well...move over Mike Bossy, there's a new sniper in town.

Cap info via CapFriendly unless otherwise noted.