Ottawa Senators Seem Unconvinced About Mike Hoffman

Mike Hoffman is taking the Ottawa Senators to arbitration for the second straight season, and the logic behind the team’s refusal to cave in to his contract demands seems to rest with his inconsistency.

Or better yet, his prevalence to consistently be inconsistent. Nobody doubts Hoffman’s skill as both a skater and a goal scorer. The trouble with him is some of the trends that he has displayed throughout his NHL career.

He tends to score at way higher rates in the first half of seasons and never continues that production down the stretch. Last season, Hoffman scored 29 goals overall, but only 4 in the last 20 games of the season.

The year prior, he scored just 4 of his 27 goals in the final 22 games of the season. During a grueling season, many players tend to wear down. Hoffman is listed at 6’0’’ and just 174 LBS. The stamina to keep scoring goals at a high level after being beat up through the course of the season isn’t entirely obvious at this point, and the Senators are hesitant to make a commitment to him because of this.

The stance by the team appears to be an indictment not just on Hoffman’s durability, but indirectly a judgement on his ability to come through in the clutch when they need him to deliver. Is this justified?

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Last season, just 3 of Hoffman’s 29 goals were game winning goals. In 2014-2015, 4 of his 27 goals were game winners.

As a comparison, Mika Zibanejad had 7 game winning goals out of his 21 goals for the 2015-2016. In 2014-2015, Mark Stone scored 26 goals and tallied 6 game winners.

What about overtime goals? Well Erik Karlsson was the only player on the Senators to have multiple such goals last season. He had 2, while Hoffman had 1. Hoffman also had 1 during the 2014-2015 season.

Game winning goals aren’t all created equal in terms of importance; a 3rd period goal that seals a 2-1 victory is certainly different than the first goal scored in a 5-0 rout, although they both get credited as game winning goals.

Still, it’s a relatively strong indicator of clutch play, and other players on the Senators not only have a higher rate of them relative to how often they score, but also more than Hoffman, all things being equal.

Just based off of numerical chance, the leading goal scorer on a team should be the most likely to also lead the team in game winning goals. Hoffman has never lead the team in game winning goals despite being the leading goal scorer in back-to-back seasons. In 2014-2015, he was 5th on the team in game winning goals. In 2015-2016, he was 3rd on the team in game winning goals.

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Hoffman’s talent for finding the back of the net is evident, yet his negotiation stance is hurt by these numbers that imply that he doesn’t score goals at crucial moments or down the stretch when games become more significant.