I disagree. Hoffman tries hard. Spezza didn't. Has nothing to do with their size or their stride.
Watch spezza skate for that loose puck before he goes in on his famous goal on theodore in overtime. He's skating at full speed. THAT is what spezza looks skating full speed. now look at his backcheck. Nowhere near the same exuberance in his stride.
Hoffman, on the other hand, i saw skating just as forcefully while backchecking as he does while on the attack. There were even a few times where hoffman pulled a karlsson by skating back at 110% and coming out of screen only to "youink" take the puck and go the other way.
What i love about hoffman is when he tries to create something and loses the puck, he often goes in beast mode to not be benched by becoming a tasmanian devil on the backcheck. Spezza never did this.
Spezza took half the rink to get up to full speed, he has a big boy. We all know you don't like Spezza, it's not really an issue here though. My point was that defensively weak players, for either effort or skill, have a short shelf life here.
Hoffman is NOT effective in the D zone, I like the guy, and have been saying that he needs to improve on it if he wants a regular top six spot. He is nowhere close to Bobby Ryan, in terms of getting back into the play after he has turned the puck over. He is the fastest guy out there, but almost never busts his ass to get back. The reason offensive players do this is because they tend to cheat for the break out, relying on other players to turn the puck over and get it up to them.
It's a bad habit when you're team is not know for stellar defence, and the team suffers for it, especially when he's not scoring. Hoffman was moved down the line up and sheltered because he wasn't willing to do the hard work after turnovers, while others like Milan (as always) were.
Just to be clear, I want him signed to a one year "prove you can do it again" deal, and I want him to stay and succeed for us.