Stunned Hurricanes expected the worst after Max Pacioretty’s injury against the Wild
In the place of the laughter and celebration that would normally fill the locker room after such a resounding win, there was the smash of heavy weights hitting the floor, imbued with anger. There were somber, quiet conversations between teammates in the hallway, a steady stream of players ducking briefly into the training room and emerging with faces blank.
Max Pacioretty was in there, and everyone feared the worst. There is bad luck in hockey, when your goalie knocks the puck into his own net or a puck pings off a skate and up into someone’s face. And then there is this, something so far beyond it feels like malevolent intervention.
Two weeks after Pacioretty returned to the ice, triumphantly, after a five-month rehabilitation of the Achilles tendon he tore in August, he was helped back off of it, that same right leg dangling below him, that same brutal injury once again hovering over the Carolina Hurricanes like an evil spectre.
No one was saying that Pacioretty tore that same Achilles when he changed direction next to his net with 19.2 seconds to play in a 5-2 win over the Minnesota Wild, immediately grabbing at that leg. But no one was saying he didn’t, either.
“It doesn’t look good,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I mean, we don’t know. But it doesn’t look good.”
And then: “We’re going to have to come back tomorrow and pick up the pieces and move on. That’s the nature of the game. But right now it’s tough to be too happy about a win when you know what is more than likely happening here.”
That doesn’t sound like a coach expecting an MRI to tell him something he doesn’t already fear deep in his soul. That sounds like a coach coming to terms with the grim reality that the player whose return they so long awaited — the missing link, their pseudo-deadline addition to put them over the top — was out again, and this time for the duration.
In the five games he played for the Hurricanes, missing the previous two before Thursday with a seemingly unrelated ankle injury, Pacioretty had three goals and was a constant threat — in short, everything the 34-year-old promised to deliver when the Hurricanes picked him up for nothing from the cap-strapped Vegas Golden Knights over the summer, before the off-ice workout that changed everything.
“We know what kind of player he is,” Brind’Amour said. “We got a glimpse of it, and that was exciting. It’s the kind of player we needed. A guy that can put the puck in the net. Hopefully it’s not as bad as we think but I’m not too optimistic right now.”
It took an arduous, grueling rehabilitation to get back on the ice ahead of schedule. And now he may face all of that again.
“After seeing how much work he’s put in to this point, we’re just thinking about him right now,” Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei said.
Now, the Hurricanes will almost certainly have to go back to the drawing board ahead of the March 3 trade deadline. They had a third-pairing defenseman on their shopping list, maybe one who could help the power play (although Skjei looked pretty good in that role Thursday). Now, if they have Pacioretty’s $7 million to spend, they can think about getting into the deep end of the pool. Bo Horvat. Dylan Larkin. Patrick Kane. Vladimir Tarasenko. Given the way their offense has struggled at times, they may need to go that big.
But that wasn’t on anyone’s mind Thursday night, what Pacioretty’s injury might mean for the Hurricanes. All anyone could think about, in the minutes that followed, was what it might mean for Pacioretty.
“We’re just praying and hoping it’s not what he just went through, but it didn’t look good,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said. “I feel sick right now, honestly. We’ll see. I don’t know. It’s terrible.”
The pall was inescapable. It’s not life and death, but it is something that will take a moment to grieve, for a hockey team that had finally fully welcomed Pacioretty into the group and begun, however briefly, to enjoy his unique gifts and what they might mean for them collectively. Now, they may once again have to readjust to life without him.
“Tonight, you need to feel this way,” Brind’Amour said. “And then tomorrow, we have to regroup. We have a new day and we have to re-focus.”
The Hurricanes went through the first half of the season expecting Pacioretty back at some point. Unless they get miraculous news, they’re expecting to go through the second half without him.
Never miss a Luke DeCock column. Sign up at tinyurl.com/lukeslatest to have them delivered directly to your email inbox as soon as they post.
Luke DeCock’s Latest: Never miss a column on the Canes, ACC or other Triangle sports
This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 10:59 PM.
