George Richards, FHN Publisher
Free agent Mike Hoffman remains on the market after scoring 65 goals over the past two seasons for the Florida Panthers.
According to a tweet from NHL Insider Elliott Friedman of Sportsnet, Hoffman is considering taking a one-year contract from someone.
The Panthers ought to be that someone — if they can make the numbers work.
Hoffman has been the Panthers’ leading goal scorer in each of the two seasons he played here.
His play away from the puck has improved, and he certainly played like someone who wanted to remain with the Panthers based on his play from January on.
If the Panthers did not want to commit to Hoffman on a long-term deal — which, based on him going to free agency in the first place says they were not — OK.
Florida general manager Bill Zito is said to have been receptive to allowing Hoffman to walk and see if things came back around.
It looks like things are coming right back around.
As it stands right now, the Panthers added five free agents at a cost of about $7.5 million against next season’s salary cap.
Add in the $8 million being made by Patric Hornqvist and Markus Nutivaara and, yeah, the Panthers have spent some money this offseason.
They still have some money to work with, although not a whole heck of a lot.
According to Puckpedia.com, the Panthers are about $12 million under the cap.
Only that number does not factor in whatever it’s going to cost to sign restricted free agents MacKenzie Weegar (likely $4 million per season) nor Aleksi Saarela ($1.5-mil?).
Non-roster players such as Grigori Denisenko and Owen Tippett will come in around $2 million total.
So, Zito is looking at having about $5 million to play with and that is probably not going to be enough to land Hoffman no matter how much he likes living in South Florida.
On Thursday, Evgenii Dadonov signed a three-year deal with Ottawa worth an average of $5 million per season.
That was a raise for Dadonov; $5 million would be a pay cut for Hoffman even if just for a season.
Signing Hoffman to anything in that neighborhood would put the Panthers up against the cap with little flexibility moving forward.
So, to get Hoffman and his booming shot back, the Panthers would have to move something else off their roster.
That may not be possible. And for one year of Hoffman, the Panthers may not be willing to do it.
In looking around the league, there is not much of a market for players who make a certain amount of money and making trades to create cap space comes at a cost.
At the end of the day, Zito may just be done with the roster construct of the Florida roster for the coming season save for a minor move here and there (or Anthony Duclair at a nice price).
By losing both Hoffman and Dadonov, something they went into Friday knowing was a very distinct possibility, the Panthers lose two of their top four scorers (Sasha Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau) over the past two seasons.
If the Panthers and Zito can make something work with Mike Hoffman, they should give it a try.
Their offense will thank them for it later.