The situation of forward Mike Hoffman is particularly talked about in the Canadiens entourage right now. The 33 year old veteran seems to be out of the picture and will be out of the lineup again tonight for the third time in four games. His presence in the lineup has fans fuming, and even Martin St-Louis seems to have no idea what to do with number 68. Given his poor season, it seems pretty obvious that there is no interest in him throughout the NHL. It must be said that Marc Bergevin gave him a very nice gift with a contract offer of 3 years and $4.5M per season. Unfortunately for the Habs, there is still one season left on this hefty contract for a player who has become a real liability for the organization. Obviously not receiving any interest on the trade market, Kent Hughes only solution to get rid of Hoffman may be a contract buyout. That's exactly the point that was made by the guys on the <i>On Jase</i> podcast in today's episode. If Hughes decided to buy out his contract, the Habs would save $3.33M of the $4.5M remaining on their payroll for next season, but the organization would add $1.67M to itself for the 2024-2025 season. Furthermore, when adding this additional amount to the payroll in 2024-2025, it falls at the same time that the CH releases the last remaining $0.833M of the Karl Alzner buyout. I understand that the CH's GM wanted to give him a chance to shine this season, in order to possibly find a buyer for his contract. However, with what we know today, it has become almost impossible. Here is the segment in question: <iiffrraammee src=https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FonjaseRDS%2Fposts%2Fpfbid09oK47yK2hwTB3Dpb9t5EwkBsYu8cFNSeCi5W6db6EtYBHLyD8CNaPqjTWjFqgEpjl&show_text=true&width=500 width=500 height=520 style=border:none;overflow:hidden scrolling=no frameborder=0 allowfullscreen=true allow=autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share></iiffrraammee>