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WASHINGTON — For more than two months, Max Pacioretty considered hanging up his skates and retiring from the NHL.
Tearing his right Achilles tendon twice in less than a year left him in bed after another surgery awaiting more rehab, unable to travel with his kids to their hockey tournaments or live a normal life. Then he came to the realization that he wasn’t ready to give up on playing.
On Wednesday night, Pacioretty will play his first game since Jan. 19, 2023, when he and the Washington Capitals face the New Jersey Devils.
“It’s important for me to do this for myself but also for my family and my kids, to kind of show them that we can get through this together,” the 35-year-old veteran player said recently. “I know I have so much more hockey in the tank.”
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That’s what the Capitals were banking on when they signed Pacioretty last summer, fully understanding he wouldn’t be ready for at least the first quarter of the season, if not longer. The six-time 30-goal scorer jumps in 35 games in, with Washington among the lowest-scoring teams in the league.
“We got to find a way to score more goals, and that’s what he does,” general manager Brian MacLellan said upon signing Pacioretty to an incentive-laden one-year contract.
The Capitals did their due diligence, MacLellan said, with head trainer Jason Serbus and Dr. John Klimkiewicz talking to the surgeon who repaired Pacioretty’s tendon. There’s still some risk involved, but he and the team have taken things slowly after concerns he rushed back last January to play for Carolina.
“Obviously, I had to do something different than the first time,” Pacioretty said. “We’re handling this entirely differently from the surgery to the rehab to the treatment to the progressions. … It’s just an entirely different program.”
The program involved Pacioretty resuming skating in early November and gradually ramping up to practicing with the team. The player from Connecticut said at the time that getting back on the ice gave him…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/39236079/capitals-max-pacioretty-set-make-season-debut-wednesday
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Publish date : 2024-01-03 22:53:42
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