Montreal Canadiens: Mike Hoffman Injury Ruins Chance to Build Chemistry

The Montreal Canadiens had a wild offseason to say the least.

There was the announcement that captain Shea Weber has likely played the last game of his career. Carey Price was left unprotected in the expansion draft and somehow went unselected. The team drafted a player in the first round who asked not to be selected at all. Jonathan Drouin surprisingly announced he would return to the team.

They also made a few player acquisitions at some point in the middle of the chaos as well.

One of the players they acquired that sort of flew under the radar was Mike Hoffman. The winger is a great goal scorer and among the most dangerous players on the ice with a man advantage. He promised to breathe some life into a dormant power play and to add another scoring winger to a team suddenly fairly deep in that area.

However, Hoffman injured his knee in the lead up to training camp and will be out until after the regular season begins.

Of all Habs players to miss camp, Hoffman might lose the most.

First of all, stepping into the power play might be a natural fit for him, but finding him the right linemates at even strength was always going to be more difficult. It would have been great to have him skate with a few different centres in camp and play a few preseason games to try and find the right chemistry with someone.

Determining who should play on Hoffman’s line is not going to be easy, and will be far more difficult since he will now be tossed into the lineup after the season begins.

It appears the team is going to run with the top line of Tyler Toffoli, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Hoffman was never going to change that plan. But would he have lined up next to Jonathan Drouin and Christian Dvorak? Maybe, but Josh Anderson now gets a chance to prove he belongs inside the top six on that offensive line. If he looks good there, it pushed Hoffman further down the lineup before he even starts skating.

With his offensive instincts, and lack of defensive awareness, it doesn’t make sense to put Hoffman on a line with Brendan Gallagher. The Habs long tenured winger will likely play with Jake Evans and Joel Armia on a pure shutdown line. The trio has some offensive capabilities, but their primary function will be to stop others from scoring goals, which isn’t Hoffman’s greatest strength.

So where does that leave Hoffman? A $4.5 million winger who really only fits on the fourth line at even strength. That would put him with Ryan Poehling and Arthur Lehkonen, which isn’t ideal either, but if Anderson plays well with Drouin and Dvorak, where else could Hoffman possibly fit? He’s not taking a spot on the first line and he isn’t playing on a line with Gallagher who gets the shutdown chores.

Unfortunately, Hoffman is going to have to start at the bottom of the lineup and try to work his way up. Even after signing a big contract, there just isn’t a spot available in the top nine to hand over to him until he finds some chemistry with a centre.

Hoffman will probably be dynamite on the power play from his first game as a Montreal Canadiens winger, but due to the timing of his injury, it is going to take some time before he is comfortable at even strength.