Hoffman Avoids, Gets Four More

Mike Hoffman will now have the security of four more seasons with the Ottawa Senators, as they have avoided salary arbitration on Wednesday morning.  The deal has been reported to be worth $20.75 million in total, working out to a very reasonable $5.2 million cap hit per season, which has the possibility of being a bargain, compared to his upside.

In the 2016 season, the 26-year old finished with 29 goals and 59 points in 78 games, ranking 61st overall in pool scoring, up significantly from the 120th overall spot in the 2015 season.  In terms of a hockey pool draft pick, he went from a mid-5th round pick to an early 3rd round pick and he's certainly trending upward.

The Senators were seemingly flipping line combinations in the 2016 season, according to the line combination tool on dobberhockey.com, so the acquisition of Derick Brassard could certainly play a big factor in Hoffman's 2017 season and it has potential for a more consistent performance through the year or one could hope, at least.  With his performances trending upward, I have his current projection in the 65-point range, which could make him worthy of a 2nd round pick, assuming we're still at 27 teams this coming season.

Even with taking on more salary with the Brassard deal, the Senators are not in any cap crunch, tacking on this deal and the potential deal for defenseman Cody Ceci.  The Sens are sitting $8 million below the cap ceiling, so it will be a matter of how close they are comfortable with getting, especially being more of a budget team in recent years.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Bobby Ryan	7.250	Dion Phaneuf	7.000	Craig Anderson	4.200
Mike Hoffman	5.188	Erik Karlsson	6.500
Derick Brassard	5.000
Mark Stone	3.500
Kyle Turris	3.500
Zack Smith	1.888
Jean-Gabriel Pageau	0.900
Clarke MacArthur	4.650	Marc Methot	4.900	Andrew Hammond	1.350
Chris Neil	1.500
Curtis Lazar	0.925
Chris Kelly	0.900
Tom Pyatt	0.800	Mark Borowiecki	1.100
Mike Blunden	0.738	Patrick Sieloff	0.894
Nick Paul	0.670	Thomas Chabot	0.894
		Chris Wideman	0.800
Matt Puempel	0.900	Mikael Wikstrand	0.813	Matthew O'Connor	0.925
Casey Bailey	0.874	Michael Kostka	0.800	Chris Driedger	0.755
Buddy Robinson	0.750	Andreas Englund	0.776
Francis Perron	0.703	Fredrik Claesson	0.700
Phil Varone	0.700	Macoy Erkamps	0.655
Ryan Dzingel	0.700	Ben Harpur	0.653
Max McCormick	0.650	Cody Donaghey	0.617
Ryan Rupert	0.632
Vincent Dunn	0.611
Zach Stortini	0.600
Chad Nehring	0.600

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system