Mike Hoffman to the Flyers?
As the rumors of Patrik Laine being dealt with the Philadelphia Flyers (or to any team for that matter) have almost completely died down, the ones of Mike Hoffman to the Flyers seem to have pick-up some steam.
It’s no secret that GM Chuck Fletcher tried really hard over the last several weeks to land Laine via trade. We can only speculate, but it’s obvious the trade talks with the Winnipeg Jets, up until this point, have not developed into anything viable for Fletcher to pull the trigger on.
With the rumors really swirling, perhaps Fletcher’s “Plan B” is Mike Hoffman. If it is, he’s lucky Hoffman is still available at this point. Hoffman is a former 30-goal scorer and had 29 goals last season in 69 games.
Don’t fool yourselves, just because he isn’t signed yet, doesn’t mean he hasn’t had plenty of interest from multiple teams.
Reports are that there are as many as 13 teams with a serious interest in the UFA, and at least 4-6 teams now pursuing him more aggressively than they previously had including the Bruins, Predators, Blue Jackets, Hurricanes, Devils, and Flyers.
In 2019-20 Hoffman carried an approximate $5.2 million cap hit while playing with the Florida Panthers and is most certainly looking for a raise. The Flyers currently have approximately $4.81 million in cap space, which is definitely not enough to land Hoffman. That’s way behind the Devils $17 million, the Predators $12.9 million, or the Blue Jackets $9.2 million in cap space. Meaning the Flyers will have to move some salary out in order to land Hoffman, but in the offseason, teams can be over the cap by 10% as long as they are back under it at the start of the season.
Let’s say Fletcher can make the cap numbers work, how much does he really want to invest in the 31-year-old Hoffman?
Since the 2015-16 season, Hoffman has been really steady with his numbers scoring between 22 and 36 goals per season, with the most recent two seasons being his career-best at 36 goals and 29 goals (in 69 games) respectively.
Hoffman can play at center or left-wing. If he comes to the Flyers, there’s no question they would use him at left wing behind captain Claude Giroux. Other left-wingers on the team are James Van Riemsdyk, Joel Farabee, Oskar Lindblom, Michael Raffl, and Carsen Twarynski. Problem is that Hoffman is a one-dimensional player. If he’s not scoring goals, you really don’t get much else from him. He’s been a minus player 4 of his 7 seasons in the NHL, including the last 3, and he’s a Minus (-) 19 in his career, which is not something head coach Alain Vigneault will stand for.
He’s also only averaged 16:43 minutes per game of ice-time in his career. On the positive side, Hoffman can put the puck in the net and scoring goals is at a real premium in today’s NHL.
Here is a video featuring all of Mike Hoffman’s goals from 2019-20.
Can the Flyers use Huffman? As much as many Flyers fans want the team to make a move, I’m just not sure how much adding Mike Hoffman to the Flyers really helps them.
With Hoffman reportedly looking for a contract in the $6.5 to $7.5 million per season, it just doesn’t make sense for the Flyers to add a JVR 2.0. Last season, other than a couple of games against the Islanders, the Flyers didn’t really have a problem scoring goals. Their powerplay surely had its issues, but Hoffman is not exactly a great powerplay specialist.
With former first-round pick Joel Farabee playing a bigger role as he matures and Oskar Lindblom coming back from cancer, why add another JVR when you already have one? If you can get rid of JVR and replace him with Hoffman, maybe, but even then JVR has scored more goals than Hoffman has over the last 5 seasons and averages about the same ice time at 16:30 minutes for his career.
Both are the same type of one-dimensional players.
I for one, hope Chuck Fletcher takes a hard pass on Mike Hoffman.
Featured Image: TheScore.com/Chase Agnello-Dean
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