Around The NHL Discussion 2018-2019

[EastonBlues22]

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[Vladys Gumption]

Mike Hoffman's fianceé allegedly behind campaign of harassment against Melinda and Erik Karlsson

Holy shit. If any of this is even remotely true then Hoffman is 100% done in Ottawa.

 

[wannabebluesplayer]

Mike Hoffman's fianceé allegedly behind campaign of harassment against Melinda and Erik Karlsson

Holy ****. If any of this is even remotely true then Hoffman is 100% done in Ottawa.

This was already posted in the Trade Forums I believe

 

[EastonBlues22]

A poster mentioned something to this effect (that one of EK or Hoffman would be moved because their significant others had issues) months ago on the Ottawa board. Crazy to find out that it's actually true.

What sort of person do you have to be to do something like that? Yikes.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

And from a hockey ops perspective they’re now going to end up with neither player and a pile of table scraps in return.

What a mess.

 

[simon IC]

Maybe Karlsson is the one who is gone, not Hoffman. Hoffman's value will drop, he is cheaper than EK, and he apparently had some chemistry with Duchene. Perhaps Ottawa hangs on to Hoffman and tries for a haul with EK?

 

[Majorityof1]

Mike Hoffman's fianceé allegedly behind campaign of harassment against Melinda and Erik Karlsson

Holy ****. If any of this is even remotely true then Hoffman is 100% done in Ottawa.

None of it is proven to be Hoffman's partner. There is no proof, or implication, Hoffman had anything at all to do with it. It seems a few things were spoken with no record while most was through anonymous social media posts on fake accounts. I wouldn't hold this against Hoffman until more of the story is known. For those of you who are in a long-term relationship, what would you do if someone said this about your significant other? You'd most likely believe and defend him/her. That might change when you get proof and see them in a different light.

Either way, the accusations alone are a cluster f*** of a situation

 

[Falco Lombardi]

I’m choosing to look only at the hockey side for now.

How can you move him now? What team wants to deal with that potential PR nightmare?

So then do you move Karlsson? How will the Sens fan base react to management keeping this guy over their franchise icon?

What a mess

 

[Dbrownss]

I'd say both guys will be gone and most likely were planned to be gone

 

[EastonBlues22]

Maybe Karlsson is the one who is gone, not Hoffman. Hoffman's value will drop, he is cheaper than EK, and he apparently had some chemistry with Duchene. Perhaps Ottawa hangs on to Hoffman and tries for a haul with EK?

It wouldn't be doing their locker room any favors, IMO, if they kept the worse player and distraction over the better player and sympathetic figure.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

None of it is proven to be Hoffman's partner. There is no proof, or implication, Hoffman had anything at all to do with it. It seems a few things were spoken with no record while most was through anonymous social media posts on fake accounts. I wouldn't hold this against Hoffman until more of the story is known. For those of you who are in a long-term relationship, what would you do if someone said this about your significant other? You'd most likely believe and defend him/her. That might change when you get proof and see them in a different light.

Either way, the accusations alone are a cluster **** of a situation

It wasn’t my intention to come off like I was to accusing Hoffman of anything.

Just thinking about this in a practical sense. You’re absolutely right that these are just allegations. Still I can’t imagine any teams chomping at the buy to trade for him now. Could you imagine the backlash of trading for him and finding out that he knew all along? And that’s ignoring the possible team chemistry ramifications.

 

[EastonBlues22]

None of it is proven to be Hoffman's partner. There is no proof, or implication, Hoffman had anything at all to do with it. It seems a few things were spoken with no record while most was through anonymous social media posts on fake accounts. I wouldn't hold this against Hoffman until more of the story is known. For those of you who are in a long-term relationship, what would you do if someone said this about your significant other? You'd most likely believe and defend him/her. That might change when you get proof and see them in a different light.

Either way, the accusations alone are a cluster **** of a situation

It's a reasonable thought, but a number of other wives (including Hammond's and Turris') have already made posts indicating that this is not unexpected.







An insider also accurately described this situation over a month ago on the Ottawa forum:

If Hoffman gets traded at the draft or before July 1st, you know the Sens are making a significant move to keep Karlsson. Either way, expect Hoffman to be gone given some off the ice issues.

I like Hoffman as a player and don't think it would be easy to replace his goal scoring. He really is a game breaker in a lot of ways, and his most productive hockey might be ahead of him.

But I'm just telling you, Karlsson and Hoffman can't be on the same team next year. It won't happen, given off-ice issues.

Not trying to be coy, but I also don't want to throw off-ice dirty laundry into an open forum.

While I'm not sure what is going to happen in the off-season, I'd be absolutely floored if one of Hoffman or Karlsson weren't traded. I'm betting Hoffman, but who knows.

But if Hoffman is traded at the draft, you can bet that is a sign by Dorion to Karlsson's camp that they want to keep him. Even if Karlsson is traded, I'd still be surprised if Hoffman were with the team a year from now.

Fair feedback given my new moniker. I have been Dr. Sens(e) on these boards since the late 90's. Lost the name somehow during a server change or something, as my old e-mail is no longer active.
Broke a few stories in my day, including most recently and well before it went public, the Sens were bidding on Lebreton. Got laughed at pretty hard for that one, which was obviously kind of fun.

The off-ice stuff isn't actually directly between Hoff and EK, as much as it is something significant between their better halves. Let's leave it at that. It has impact beyond those two players, as everyone talks on the team. And it's big enough that it isn't going away, and as a result, there is no way Dorion will have both on the same team next year. Ok, well let me put it another way - there is no way a GM who understood anything about team culture and locker room dynamics would allow both players to be here. Dorion does seem a tad oblivious on the team culture side of things, so who knows.

But at even money, I'd place a pretty significant wager Hoff will be gone and would already be thinking about what I'd spend my winnings on. Plus, I don't think this issue will hurt Hoffman's value per say in trading, and given he's been linked to trades before, it won't be a red flag to trade him all of a sudden.

The 2019 draft is way better than this one. Dorion might go for a 2019 1st rounder, given we're losing ours. That would be a great return.

At this point I'm not even sure if it matters if these specific allegations are true. There's clearly issues here that are affecting the team.

 

[BlueDream]

Too much smoke to not be fire. Hoffman is gone.

Maybe LA will take him, they don't give a crap about PR anyways and they need a scoring winger with speed... It's actually kind of a perfect fit.

 

[Spektre]

The Hoffman fiasco going public doesn’t help his trade value. He may still get a decent return but every GM will try to take advantage of this knowledge. If they don’t they’re not too bright.

 

[Novacain]

The main thing that blows my mind is how in the world did they not pull the trigger with us at the deadline if they had any clue about any of this. We were offering, what, a 1st, good prospect, and another piece? No way they get that now.

Feels like we dodged a bullet to me.

 

[Dbrownss]

I was a big fan of getting Hoffman, not anymore. Our snowflake locker room couldn't take it.

 

[The Note in MI]

This stuff reminds me of this horribly shitty show my wife sometimes watches called WAGS that follows wives and girlfriends of sports players. So I’m not surprised at all I guess.

 

[Majorityof1]

It wasn’t my intention to come off like I was to accusing Hoffman of anything.

Just thinking about this in a practical sense. You’re absolutely right that these are just allegations. Still I can’t imagine any teams chomping at the buy to trade for him now. Could you imagine the backlash of trading for him and finding out that he knew all along? And that’s ignoring the possible team chemistry ramifications.

I wasn't accusing you of it. I apologize if it appeared that way. It was a general caveat to the discussion. I quoted you because you linked the article I was referencing.

It's a reasonable thought, but a number of other wives (including Hammond's and Turris') have already made posts indicating that this is not unexpected.

An insider also accurately described this situation over a month ago on the Ottawa forum:

At this point I'm not even sure if it matters if these specific allegations are true. There's clearly issues here that are affecting the team.

Those additional tweets aren't evidence as we are still hearing one-side of the story. There are three sides to every story, his, hers and the truth, which is almost always somewhere in between. Friends of one of the parties generally tell their friends' side, not the truth. The tweets referenced provide no indication of why the other wives felt the way they did. They being friends with Mrs. Karlsson they may have heard her complain about Hoffman's GF many times before. But they would just be repackaging the same unproven allegations and not providing any real evidence.

I didn't mean to imply that Ottawa shouldn't move one or both. If you have two players who despise each other, regardless of the reason, one should probably be moved. Again it was more a general caveat to watch how people talk about the topic. Don't paint Hoffman in a negative light because of unproven allegations against his significant other. In this country and Canada too, you are innocent until proven guilty and there is not guilt by association. But in the internet age, accusations are taken as fact and it can ruin innocent people's lives and careers. Its more spectacular when its a juicy rumor. But when its ultimately proven false, nobody is rushing to print/discuss a retraction. "So-and-so accused of terrible things" gets a 10 million hits, but "So-and-so controversy just a misunderstanding" gets 10k hits. Many people just always assume that person is scum based on the unfounded accusation when really they may not have ever done anything wrong.

 

[Stealth JD]

Poor Hoffman. And the Karlsson's obviously. But Hoffman needs to have an exorcism performed to get that level of crazy out of his life.

...if it's true of course.
(which it almost assuredly is)
Yeah...I said it. I believe in the morbid insanity of a crazy woman.

 

[EastonBlues22]

Those additional tweets aren't evidence as we are still hearing one-side of the story. There are three sides to every story, his, hers and the truth, which is almost always somewhere in between. Friends of one of the parties generally tell their friends' side, not the truth. The tweets referenced provide no indication of why the other wives felt the way they did. They being friends with Mrs. Karlsson they may have heard her complain about Hoffman's GF many times before. But they would just be repackaging the same unproven allegations and not providing any real evidence.

I didn't mean to imply that Ottawa shouldn't move one or both. If you have two players who despise each other, regardless of the reason, one should probably be moved. Again it was more a general caveat to watch how people talk about the topic. Don't paint Hoffman in a negative light because of unproven allegations against his significant other. In this country and Canada too, you are innocent until proven guilty and there is not guilt by association. But in the internet age, accusations are taken as fact and it can ruin innocent people's lives and careers. Its more spectacular when its a juicy rumor. But when its ultimately proven false, nobody is rushing to print/discuss a retraction. "So-and-so accused of terrible things" gets a 10 million hits, but "So-and-so controversy just a misunderstanding" gets 10k hits. Many people just always assume that person is scum based on the unfounded accusation when really they may not have ever done anything wrong.

You're talking about assumptions, but you're also making the assumption that those other people are only parroting what Mrs. Karlsson told them. You're even assuming they're all friends.

We know for a fact that there's a pattern of harassment by someone, because it's been documented and it's being investigated. We know that Mrs. Karlsson has (at the very least) reason to believe that it was Hoffman's significant other behind it. Believing that someone is capable of something like this, and bringing that belief to the public eye in spite of knowing the potential fallout, is not the sort of thing that's typically done lightly by people in this position.

We have a number of other people who were part of that team's wife community who are not surprised that this accusation has been levied, and nobody else (with firsthand knowledge or otherwise) has stepped up to defend the integrity of the accused beyond Hoffman himself. That's certainly not what we would expect if others generally had zero reason to believe this rather outrageous claim was possible. At the very least, we'd be hearing that people are "shocked" at the accusation.

We even have an insider who knew all about this situation multiple days before the motion was filed in the legal system, so clearly this didn't come out of nowhere.

This person might not be guilty of this specific allegation, but it takes a tremendous skeptic to believe that there's nothing at all to see here given the context and what we know, and I disagree that any potential employer should act like nothing happened until the investigation's concluded and the official verdict is out.

For example, even if we assume that Hoffman and his significant other have zero culpability here, the situation itself is clearly going to be a distraction that follows him wherever he goes until it's resolved. If it turns out that either or both actually did something stupid, it's going to be a huge problem for his next employer...especially since they brought him into the organization with this accusation hanging overhead.

Maybe those are judged to be acceptable risks and maybe they aren't, but it would be stupid not to weigh them before associating one's organization with this mess.

 

[Thallis]

I was a big fan of getting Hoffman, not anymore. Our snowflake locker room couldn't take it.

God I hate when people say things like this. The only time things come out are when Micklasz wants to construct a narrative to blame on someone. It's almost always purely for eye balls. The reason the Blues haven't won is that they haven't been good enough. Most people involved with the locker room note how close the group is. Our locker room is fine, our ice product need improvement. However, you don't bring in someone with even a whiff of these kinds of allegations when our Captain went through something similar last season. Just asking for trouble.

 

[Dbrownss]

God I hate when people say things like this. The only time things come out are when Micklasz wants to construct a narrative to blame on someone. It's almost always purely for eye balls. The reason the Blues haven't won is that they haven't been good enough. Most people involved with the locker room note how close the group is. Our locker room is fine, our ice product need improvement. However, you don't bring in someone with even a whiff of these kinds of allegations when our Captain went through something similar last season. Just asking for trouble.

Theres been more then one report about how the locker room gets down on its self. It's not exactly a "strong" group.

 

[Thallis]

Theres been more then one report about how the locker room gets down on its self. It's not exactly a "strong" group.

Morale getting weak when you constantly lose doesn't make your locker room snowflakes, it makes them human. Pretty much all of those reports are from guys who don't have access to the locker room.

 

[Dbrownss]

Morale getting weak when you constantly lose doesn't make your locker room snowflakes, it makes them human. Pretty much all of those reports are from guys who don't have access to the locker room.

I'm not going to go dig through articals but players have said how the room gets. They dont have a strong voice in the room. I'm not insinuating they hate each other but Armstrong cant bring in potential problems.


Not really locker room related but somewhat relevant to the topic. On NHL radio, the host said Peter Stastny said Paul was shocked and saddened by being moved to Winnipeg, even though we heard from Army how he talked to Paul ahead of time to see if it was something he was open to doing. Sometimes you get conflicting reports with these personal issues

 

[A Real Barn Burner]

I'm not going to go dig through articals but players have said how the room gets. They dont have a strong voice in the room. I'm not insinuating they hate each other but Armstrong cant bring in potential problems.


Not really locker room related but somewhat relevant to the topic. On NHL radio, the host said Peter Stastny said Paul was shocked and saddened by being moved to Winnipeg, even though we heard from Army how he talked to Paul ahead of time to see if it was something he was open to doing. Sometimes you get conflicting reports with these personal issues

I don’t really think he was all that devestated no matter how much it’s been said. This was a good interview when he left

Paul Stastny speaks on being traded to the Winnipeg Jets

The “you can’t be naive to the situation” still strikes me as odd. He then mention last year of his contract which I take to mean that’s not the situation he was referring to. idk seems like there is more there not being said.

Also Remember a NBCSN interview in second round after game one or two after the game on the bench where Stastny said “I made the right desision on coming here” referring to Winnipeg and being traded at deadline and how it compared to St Louis. Seemed like coming back to St Louis was the furthest thing from his mind and I wasn’t happy about how the question was phrased.

Funny part, I don’t know how many articles in the last few weeks saying Stastny is open to returning. Either he just wants to increase bidding or there isn’t a “Situation” that would prevent him from coming back.

Still wish we had a definitive answer on how the blues locker room is.