Hoffman Flipped Over to the Panthers

			2018 Season			July 1st, 2018
To Florida	POS	Age	GP	Goals	Points	Years	Cap Hit
Mike Hoffman	F	28	82	22	56	2	$5.2 mil
2018 7th Round Draft Pick
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To San Jose	POS	Age	GP	Goals	Points	Years	Cap Hit
2018 4th Round Draft Pick
2018 5th Round Draft Pick
2019 2nd Round Draft Pick

Well, I couldn't quite get to this deal, as soon as it happened on Tuesday, but the San Jose Sharks were able to flip the scoring forward Mike Hoffman, acquired earlier in the morning from the Ottawa Senators, picking up a number of quick draft picks, including two more picks in this weekend's entry draft.

The Sharks didn't appear to be a bad fit for Hoffman, but clearly the Sharks had other ideas for this summer, like clearing some cap space, possibly looking to swim in the John Tavares waters, when the pool opens up for teams to jump into.  At least, that's what the rumour mill has churning out there.  Of course, we can throw Ilya Kovalchuk's name into that mill as well, as he appears to be coming back into the NHL mix.  Nevertheless, the Sharks cleared up $4 million in cap space in their two deals and they have some more picks to work with, restocking the shelves of their prospect closet.

The Panthers, on the other hand, add the goal scorer, mired in controversy, leaving Ottawa, but he should find a pretty good fresh start in Florida.  Hoffman joins an already impressive lineup of young, talented players, like Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and Vincent Trocheck, and he should be able to find a solid scoring role on this team as well.  As the story goes here, the Panthers were in the mix to get Hoffman out of Ottawa, but the Senators were asking too much from a division rival, but luckily, the Sharks were not looking for quite as much, thus the deal was made, making it more into a 3-way deal in the end.

The Panthers already have a fairly solid projected lineup, still in need of a seventh defenseman on their roster, but overall, it looks pretty solid and still has about $2.1 million to work with, before the salary cap ceiling gets lifted here in the next week or so.

On the other hand, and maybe more importantly, I have the Sharks with a minimum of 20 players on their projected roster and they are currently carrying $11.5 million in cap space, with more room to come.  They will certainly be entertaining some big names, once the free agent discussion phase opens up, which is only a few days away.  It's not unfair to expect big things from the Sharks.