Max Pacioretty, Connor Brown garnering significant interest in free agency

Frank Seravalli explained how Max Pacioretty and Connor Brown are receiving a lot of interest from teams around the league on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.

Frank Seravalli: I want to talk about two guys in particular who are getting some attention in free agency and rightfully so. One of them is Connor Brown coming off of an ACL tear and the other one is Max Pacioretty coming off of a second consecutive ruptured Achilles tendon suffered with the Carolina Hurricanes. It was repaired in the offseason then just five games into the season it was ruptured again.

Let’s talk first about Connor Brown. I’m told the interest there has been significant, he’s seven months removed from that ACL tear and has been skating in the Toronto area. In the meantime he’s been able to do strength training, the knee looks good. He had no issues at this point, I’m told he has been doing things as strenuous as one-legged box jumps, things like that in order to get ready for this upcoming season.

Now, both of these players in Brown and Pacioretty have available to them a unique clause in the NHL’s CBA which allows teams to offer these guys contracts that are bonus laden. The salary can be as low as league minimum and then add bonus payments along the way. Much in the same way that Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci did last year with the Bruins. They got a minimal amount that hits the cap and then the rest comes in terms of a bonus payment at the end of the season that doesn’t hit your cap until as late as next year.

And the reason for that is because both guys missed at least 100 days last season on LTIR. They have an interesting clause that opens up and de-risks the opportunity for teams to add these players. I don’t get the sense that Brown will be a candidate for that. He could get a multi-year contract with perhaps a pay raise off of what he was making previously. Teams seem to be very confident in him, at this point.

Pacioretty might be in a different spot but what’s interesting about Pacioretty is that he does things that nobody else in the league can do as a finisher. Not only that, it’s a weak free-agent class and the same confidence that exists for Brown’s knee surgery also exists for Pacioretty’s re-repair of his Achilles tendon. No one is expecting any issues moving forward. It seems there were hints that the first surgery that was done was improperly repaired because it ruptured in the same exact spot.

So this time around expecting Max Pacioretty to regain form and be fully healthy. And by the way I don’t think the door has closed just yet for Pacioretty to return to the Carolina Hurricanes.