Denis Gauthier made an interesting statement on the Montreal Canadiens' L'Antichambre show recently about Mike Hoffman. Obviously, since the 33 year old veteran is absolutely not in the long term plans of the organization, in addition to being a polarizing player who attracts criticism, many observers and fans would like to see him leave the CH sooner rather than later. However, finding a new team for him, with his inconsistent play and multiple defensive shortcomings, is a major challenge for the club's management. Add to that the fact that #68 is under contract until 2024, at an annual salary of $4.5M on the payroll. That's a really unattractive element for a team on the verge of making the playoffs and already very tight on payroll. So, ultimately, if the CH wants to get rid of him, it will have to pay a draft pick and/or retain money on its payroll. We saw this recently with the Nikita Zaitsev transaction with the Senators, when they gave second and fourth round picks to get rid of him. However, as the excellent Denis Gauthier points out, in the CH's current situation, there's no rush with the latter, who has been playing good hockey for a few weeks now. It's absolutely not worth giving away important elements of the future to get out of his contract. Here are his comments: <q>Don't waste your time trying to spend to get rid of some players. His contract ends anyway. I'm going to live with it, he's going to score 15 to 20 goals for us. The Habs are not in a position to trade draft picks in order to get rid of a contract like Hoffman's! - Denis Gauthier</q> We can therefore deduce, with this statement of the former NHL defenseman, that Hoffman is likely to leave the CH that at the end of the 2023-2024 season, when his pact will expire. So we have not finished seeing Mike Hoffman in the Tricolore uniform. <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/Antichambre/status/1628957965154672642?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1628957965154672642%7Ctwgr%5Eac7711c16d009aec808e452537c838390922a7a8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanadiens.com%2FDenis-Gauthier-vient-probablement-de-reveler-le-moment-exact-ou-le-CH-sera-debarrasse-de-Mike-Hoffman-212184'> </a></blockquote></div> Credit: <a href='https://www.fanadiens.com/equipe-lnh/canadiens-de-montreal/Denis-Gauthier-vient-probablement-de-reveler-le-moment-exact-ou-le-CH-sera-debarrasse-de-Mike-Hoffman' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Fanadiens.com</a>