Montreal Canadien’s, Canadian left winger Max Pacioretty joins Ambri-Piotta in Swiss league
After the lockout of National Hockey League (NHL), many Canadian players are signing in Switzerland’s hockey league and one of them is Max Pacioretty, who has now signed for Ambri-Piotta.
The forward, who had signed for Montreal Canadiens for 6 years last month, is the sixth Canadien’s player who has now signed with a European team after the lock out.
The Ambri-Piotta side has not been doing too well for last some years and they are looking for a player which can lift them and give them a boost, which Pacioretty would be looking to give.
According to the 23-year-old forward, it was Kevin Constantine, former NHL coach and now the mentor of Swiss club, who convinced him to join him. Former NHL coach, who never played an NHL game but managed to coach Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils
from 1993 to 2002, urged him to join the team that needed him the most.
The New Canaan, Connecticut born player told that he agreed to help them and he would give his all for the team as he said,
“I explained to him that I have intentions of helping them win and playing my heart out. I was happy to have that conversation with him.”
It would be interesting to see Pacioretty up against his Montreal Canadien team-mates as Swiss Defenseman, Yannick Weber signed for Geneva-Servette and another Defenseman Swiss Raphael Diaz signed for EV Zug.
Selected 22nd overall in the first round of the 2007 NHL draft, he showed a good performance in NHL last season but he would be looking to improve it further next season as he has been working in the gym and to get into shape, according to his trainer Ben
Prentiss, as he said,
“We were able to build on Max’s current strength and increase his power (this summer)”.
After losing his weight and now being 219 pounder talked about it as he said,
“I was able to skate a lot more given that I didn’t finish my season on an injury. It’s the same thing every summer, talking about how good shape I’m in. But I think it’s a process. I build off the previous summer and get bigger and stronger because of that.”
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