Patching the Caps: The Risks and Rewards of Max Pacioretty

With the Caps needing to get younger and dealing with a tight salary cap situation (as usual), it was unlikely that they were going to be big players in free agency this summer – and early into Day 1 of the free agency period, their only action had been to swing a trade with Montreal for depth defenseman Joel Edmundson.

That changed when Brian MacLellan and company dipped their toe into the UFA pool and snagged Max Pacioretty, the 34-year-old winger who most recently suited up for Carolina before getting injured last season…which we’ll get to in a second. Coming off a four-year, $28M contract, Pacioretty inked a deal with the Caps for a cap-friendly one year at $2M, with the potential for an…