Carolina Hurricanes forward Max Pacioretty to miss six months after Achilles surgery

After having his 2021-22 season shortened by injuries, forward Max Pacioretty called it bad luck, saying, “I hope that’s in my past.”

But Pacioretty now has a serious injury to overcome before he can play for the Carolina Hurricanes, who obtained the veteran in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights. Pacioretty, 33, will undergo surgery for a torn Achilles tendon and miss an estimated six months, the Hurricanes announced Tuesday night.

Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell said Wednesday that Pacioretty suffered the injury during an off-ice workout in the team’s facilities at Wake Competition Center on Tuesday morning. The surgery was performed at Raleigh Orthopaedic on Wednesday.

“We still think we’re in pretty good shape but we’ll keep our eyes open,” Waddell told the News & Observer. “We’ll listen to some teams with some cap issues. We’ll listen. But we also think the player’s going to come back sometime during the second half of the year. You’ve got to have the cap space, too. You can’t just replace his whole salary.”

With Pacioretty eligible to go on long-term injured reserve, giving the Hurricanes $7 million in salary-cap relief while he’s out, Waddell said the Hurricanes will not exercise a buyout of Jake Gardiner’s contract. Gardiner is back on the ice in Minnesota after missing all of last season after hip and back surgeries.

“I’ll give Gardiner credit,” Waddell said. “He’s been working and skating with some of our guys up there. We’ve got some film of it. I guess when he had trouble two years ago you know why, it’s because his hips were so bad. We’re keeping an open mind. One thing we don’t have is a left-shot (defenseman) so we’ll see how he does in camp.”

Pacioretty is coming off a season with Vegas that was shortened by foot and hand injuries. He played 39 games, finishing with 19 goals and 18 assists. Pacioretty was traded to Carolina along with defenseman Dylan Coghlan from the Golden Knights in exchange for future considerations on July 13 as Vegas looked to clear salary-cap space.

After the trade, Pacioretty called the 2021-22 season “a weird year where it seemed like everything went wrong.. My injuries were one-offs and bad luck.”

The expected recovery time from a torn Achilles can vary. Forward Justin Williams suffered the same injury in September 2008 and was able to return to the Canes’ lineup in early December.

The Canes’ trade for Pacioretty was to help offset the loss of forwards Vincent Trocheck and Nino Niederreiter, who both left in free agency last month. They also signed free-agent forwards Ondrej Kase and Ryan Dzingel, a former Canes player who agreed to a one-year, two-way contract.

Pacioretty’s injury creates new opportunities for Kase and Martin Necas, who signed a two-year bridge deal worth an average of $3 million per season on Tuesday

“That’s the thing,” Waddell said. “The Kase signing has kind of gone under the radar but he’s a pretty good player. Obviously he’s had some injuries, too. We think we still have nine top-nine forwards so it’s not like we have a big hole there. We’re disappointed for Max but it looks like we’ll be fine. This could be our trade deadline acquisition. You don’t have a guy all year and he comes back right around there, that’s a pretty good addition to your hockey team.”