Golden Knights’ Pacioretty ‘really in a good place’ as he makes Montreal return

Max Pacioretty is set to play his first game in Montreal since being traded by the Canadiens to the Golden Knights, but the switch to the away dressing room wasn't as weird as he expected.

MONTREAL — There were so many things to ask Max Pacioretty about. Standing on a small riser, hands stuffed in the pants pocket of a blue suit, the former captain of the Montreal Canadiens spoke about all aspects of spending 10 years in a city he loved and the process of moving on to a new hockey home with the Vegas Golden Knights.

But for all avenues to go down, all the things to re-visit, things really boil down to one extremely believable fact.

“My life is very different,” Pacioretty said.

A Saturday like this certainly highlights the variance between the existence Pacioretty knew starring for the Habs and the one he experiences now, playing for a team that isn’t as old as some of his own children.

The longtime Canadien, who just returned to the Vegas lineup this week after being sidelined with an upper-body injury, talked about the importance of two points for his 7-8-1 team, but didn’t shy away from the enormity of the moment. Montreal, Pacioretty knows better than most, is one excitable place and there’s no denying the still-swirling emotions that exist on both sides of the equation.

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It was just two months ago the world wondered if the Canadiens were really going to open training camp with Pacioretty in the fold after the club had done its best to deal its captain before last year’s trade deadline and at the NHL Draft in June, when Pacioretty nixed a swap that would have sent him to the Los Angeles Kings. Only a few days before the Canadiens gathered, Pacioretty was sent to Vegas and immediately signed a four-year contract extension.

Thus far, the transaction has looked great for Montreal, with former Knight Tomas Tatar thriving as a top-line left winger, the same position Pacioretty used to always deliver from.

And while No. 67 has just two goals in the 12 contests he has suited up for in Vegas, he exudes an unmistakable relief related to the change. As Pacioretty said, the Golden Knights started with a blank slate a couple years ago and he seems sincerely thankful for the opportunity to have the same.

“Not to say something is better than the other, but I’m really in a good place and I’m very, very happy,” he said.

The anticipation for this contest has been building all week because Vegas’s schedule just happened to take the squad through Toronto and Ottawa first, where Pacioretty was already getting peppered about what it will be like to return to the city he once spent 12 months a year in with his young family. That said, nothing was going to match what he met upon arriving in Montreal itself. There’s still just no other place in the league that electrifies around big events like this one.

“It’s definitely a different level,” said Knights coach Gerard Gallant, who served as an assistant with the Habs for two years and was a big reason why Pacioretty was comfortable going to Vegas. “He was here a long time and I know he’s real excited to play and I know [he’ll be] real excited when the game is over to get by this, cause he’s nervous.”

It’s understandable why anyone passing through an unsettling moment would want to skip to the part where you just feel like yourself again. But as much as players try to downplay the significance of returns like this, it’s all part of the long arc of giving yourself entirely to an organization and its fans. Josh Gorges did just that with the Canadiens, too, as a heart-and-soul defenceman who played almost 500 games with the Bleu Blanc et Rouge before being shipped to Buffalo in the summer of 2014.

“You’ll remember the first game back because it’s fun,” said Gorges, who was actually part of the deal Montreal struck with San Jose in 2007 that also secured the first-round pick used to draft Pacioretty. “You’re just waiting to start the game. That’s all you want throughout the whole day: ‘I just wish the puck would drop right now and I could just get playing and stop thinking about everything that’s going to happen.’

“If I did tell him anything, I’d say: Take it all in, enjoy it. Even if there are boos, it’s not because they don’t like you or don’t respect you — if anything, take that as [respect]. It’s not unlike the fans of Montreal to boo former players whether they were liked or disliked, it has nothing to do with that, it’s just part of the fans being emotional and passionate about their team and the game itself.”

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Of course, there’s nothing the crowd could throw at Pacioretty he hasn’t already endured. He noted with a chuckle that he’d seen his fair share of challenges and distractions over the past 10 years, so nothing related to the hoopla of this game with throw him for a loop.

Pacioretty said he received many well wishes walking around the city during a day off on Friday, as he met friends for lunch and visited his old barber. His affection for this place, you sense, will never completely fade. But, as a guy who turns 30 in 10 days, he’s turned the page on the past decade. His family has bought a home in Vegas — and sold their former one in Montreal — and his pregnant wife has found herself a doctor there.

Soon enough, the goals are going to come for the guy who routinely put up 30 a year before the team-wide debacle in Montreal last season. When that happens, the hysteria that used to be part of the terms of his employment will surely seem like something from a previous life.

“The biggest change is not forgetting my sunglasses when I leave the house,” Pacioretty grinned.

That sounds wonderful, but it doesn’t mean his eyes won’t be a little red at some point during this trip back to Montreal.

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