Mike Hoffman trade: Scouting the return with Fear the Fin

The thing with any trade, especially one with a Western Conference team, is that we hardly know anything about the pieces involved. So we’ve reached out to sister blog Fear the Fin, where their Barracuda writer, Bryan Del Fava, gave us some quick answers.

First of all, Boedker is known for his fantastic speed. I’d say behind Marcus Sorensen, he was regularly one of our faster skaters. In terms of his role, I’d say he’s a playmaker, seeing how he was fourth overall in primary points per game for us. He’s a good second line forward, but can also be dispatched on the third line and even the first line.

I don’t think Boedker will ever get back to being a 50 point player, but his speed and playmaking abilities will definitely contribute to your team this season. I think he’ll put up second-line average points, with more assists than goals.

Finally, this move says to me that Doug Wilson is all in this offseason for John Tavares and/or Ilya Kovalchuk. Getting rid of a not-bad-but-not-good contract of a guy who we thought was going to be a 50 point player is a salary dump more than anything.

Now, as the main writer for our AHL team, the San Jose Barracuda, I’d like to fill you in on the other piece in the trade - Julius Bergman.

Bergman is an offensive defenseman who had a big contribution to an otherwise not outstanding power play this season. He has a cannon of a shot. Unfortunately, he isn’t very defensively sound, and it showed this year and last year.