What well known locker room issues? Silly to bring up fabricated stories when the guy a team like St.louis is lining up for his service. Karlsson didn't have an issue getting 7 years despite making up lies about his teammate and blowing a team internally but then again looking at the state of the Sharks I wonder if they should've have "looked more carefully".
Not sure why you'd decide Hoffman's version of that story is the truth. Ottawa is a small town, and hockey players are the closest thing we get to celebrities here, word gets around. You can chose not to believe me, but I've been close enough involved in the social circles those guys are in to know it wasn't exactly a secret. Hoffman wasn't much liked in that locker room and that was known well before he and his wife got mixed up with the Karlssons in all that craziness. He's had issues with multiple coaches, there are some clips out there of his confrontations with coaches in his senators years if you wanna take a look. You can watch him play and see his compete level when things get tough. It goes on and on.
I never claimed that he was a cancer, but its hard to argue that he isn't a selfish player and he has had well documented clashes with several coaches. You can decide if you want to believe the rumours or not.
But it seems to me a lot of teams were a little skeptical as well, seeing as a guy who produced at close to a point per game clip in the previous two seasons could barely find himself a one year 4 million dollar deal less than two weeks before training camp starts.