As good as an offensive threat Max Pacioretty is in the regular season with the Montreal Canadiens, it’s the playoffs that leads to his criticisms around the fan base.
The most common way to classify an NHL player is on their stats. 40-point player or 60-point player? 10-goal scorer or 30-goal scorer? Montreal Canadiens team captain Max Pacioretty has had the pleasure of being on the larger option ever since 2014.
Watching Pacioretty snipe goalies out of their nets has been one of the greatest sights for Habs fans since he made his NHL debut. In fact, Pacioretty is seventh in the league in regular season goals with 203 dating back to the 2010-2011 season.
That’s a pretty impressive stat. Despite the obvious talent, Patches is still one of the most underrated players in the NHL. The problem however, is that all his success has only taken place in the regular season. Pacioretty has taken part in the playoffs for the Montreal Canadiens four times in his career. Unfortunately, each year has been pretty underwhelming.
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Playoff Lows
The team captain has 38 playoff games to his name. You’d think that Pacioretty would be a solid playoff contributor based on his regular season numbers, but he only has a total of 19 points.
His best playoff year offensively came in the 2013-2014 run. That was also the farthest the Canadiens got in recent memory by reaching the Eastern Conference Final. In those 17 playoff games, Pacioretty finished with 5 goals and 6 assists for 11 points.
This year’s performance from Pacioretty was probably his worst. He only had one point over the six games, and it was an assist. It was hard to criticize him if you watched the games. He finished the series with 28 shots and had some quality chances to score. So is it his fault, or is he just being slapped with bad luck?
To be honest, it’s probably a combination of both. There’s a lot of pressure being the Montreal Canadiens’ captain and it gets worse when you’re the goal-scorer that doesn’t score. Additionally, Pacioretty played a lot of the playoffs with Philip Danualt who isn’t a top-line center. Both Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk benefitted from playing with each other in 2015-2016. If Claude Julien hasn’t given up on that, perhaps Galchenyuk’s playmaking can set Pacioretty up to score more in April.
For the Canadiens to succeed in the playoffs they’ll need all pieces to come out firing. It’ll be hard to get anywhere if Pacioretty’s playoff slumps continue.
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Do you think Pacioretty will be better in future playoffs runs? Is a better center all the sniper needs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!