A few days ago I started off what will be a few interesting over/under questions with whether or not Thomas Chabot would get more than the 9 game tryout and possibly remain with the team for an extended run.
The results were overwhelming in that most of you believe that the Senators will not force anything or rush him and that he will indeed play less than the 10 games that would trigger the first year of his entry level deal.
Today I turn my attention to Ottawa's leading goal-scorer and the guy who has already been the most-discussed player this summer due to his need for a new contract and the potential arbitration that the two sides avoided.
Mike Hoffman has put up back to back seasons of 27 and 29 goals, and is one of the leading producers in the NHL in 5 vs 5 output.
Those stats gave him the leverage to pry a 4 year, $20.75M contract out of the club that will keep him in the Senators fold for the foreseeable future. The Senators also went out and hired a coach who is very familiar with Hoffman. Guy Boucher was behind the bench for 2 seasons in Drummondville, including Hoffman's 52 goal, 94 point season in his draft year.
Hoffman is a player who sometimes takes a while to get going at a certain level, but once he becomes familiar with that level he has always excelled. Suffice to say, with 56 goals in the past two seasons, Hoffman is now comfortable at the NHL level and is ready to break out.
But, is this the year he cracks the 30 goal mark? The Senators added a more play-making centre in Derick Brassard (as opposed to Mika Zibanejad), who should complement Hoffman's shoot-first mentality, even if Brassard is a left-handed shot which might reduce the natural instinct to set up the left-winger.
If Hoffman has any downside offensively, and this is something that affects a lot of snipers, it is that he has shown the penchant for going long stretches without finding the back of the net. Last season, he went 12 games between Feb 13th and March 12th with just 1 goal to show for his efforts. He had a handful of stretches of 5 games or more without scoring.
So can Hoffman find the consistency to maintain a pace, or will he continue to be plagued by long stretches of snake-bitteness? While he was on pace for more than 40 throughout the first half of the season and he does have the potential to reach that lofty mark (40 being the new 50 after all), lets set the bar at 30, which would be a career high and be the first Sen since Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek both turned the trick in 2011-12