NHL teams had until 5:00pm EDT Friday to sign prospects on their 90 man Reserve Lists to an Entry Level contract, otherwise they would lose their signing rights. As the deadline passed, the Colorado Avalanche decided not to tender a contract to 2014 sixth round draft pick Maximilian Pajpach.
The 22-year old goaltender has spent the past two seasons playing in his home of Slovakia. He was relegated to a backup in the the second tier league, making it very obvious that there wasn’t any future for him as a professional goaltender in North America.
Pajpach was in Denver for the team’s summer camp after being drafted, but was never able to gain any traction in his development.
The move frees up a spot on Colorado’s reserve list and bumps one prospect off of the bottom of their goaltending depth chart. This leaves Semyon Varlamov, Spencer Martin, Pavel Francouz, Adam Werner and Petr Kvaca as the only goalies on the reserve list for the Avalanche. One would assume they will add to this group at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft later this month.
Though his time with the Colorado Avalanche organization was short lived, Pajpach can live on in infamy in this highlight-worthy shootout goal from J.T. Compher at the team’s 2015 summer development camp.
Best of luck to Maximilian and hopefully he is able to carve out a career for himself playing professional hockey in Europe.