MarkovsKnee
Global Moderator
You might argue about the roster spot/contract slot but the team will have lots of cap space given all of the junk contracts leaving this year. There is $20M coming off with Byron, Drouin, Monahan and Dadonov gone, the only new expenditure is Caufield's new deal, let's say $7M more than his ELC.
If the team brought back everyone currently under contract the team has a full roster with about 10M cap space (presuming Price remains on LTIR). They are going to be bad again next year, so no need to buy Hoffman out and push his payout into the future.
Yeah, we have the cap space to carry him, but he's taking a roster spot I would prefer to go to someone else. His one year of dead cap is nothing considering cap is expected to go up $4m-$5m. This is the last season where we can take advantage of the tight cap. Hoffman buyout gives us a hell of a lot more space.