The Montreal Canadiens aren’t getting good news early in Mike Hoffman’s run with the organization. After the club signed Hoffman to a three-year contract this summer, they’ve already learned he will be out for some time, miss camp, and a chunk of the regular season.
The Canadiens signed Hoffman to a contract that came with an annual value of $4.5 million per season this summer. The hope was that he’d offer some consistent goal-scoring in the top six. Unfortunately, the only way he’ll do that is if he plays and the news out of camp is not good.
Hoffman failed his pre-camp physical and it is being reported a lower-body injury will keep him out of action for a while. It’s not entirely clear what the injury is or the extent of its severity, but it’s something that could keep Hoffman out for up to four weeks, as per head coach Dominique Ducharme.
Eric Engels spoke with the Canadiens bench boss on Saturday and it was confirmed Hoffman wouldn’t be back right away. He was among five players who failed their training camp medicals due to injury and reports are he sustained the injury during the off-season prior to joining the team.
The silver lining here is that Hoffman should be back with plenty of the regular season left to play and if this injury doesn’t turn out to be dramatically serious, he should come in and offer the Habs a scoring punch. Hoffman has posted 395 points (189 goals, 206 assists) in 545 career NHL games. He’s spent time with the Ottawa Senators, Florida Panthers, and St. Louis Blues.
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