Hoffman signs one-year, $4 million contract with Blues

Mike Hoffman signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the St. Louis Blues on Monday.

The 31-year-old forward had been attending Blues training camp on a professional tryout contract (PTO) signed Dec. 27.

St. Louis opens the season at the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday (10:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NHL.TV).

Hoffman said when training camp began that he joined the Blues because it gave him the best chance to win the Stanley Cup.

"It's nice," Hoffman said Tuesday. "You can just look ahead and have our mind in the right direction on the up-and-coming games in Colorado. I think everyone's really excited to get camp over with and now start with the real deal.

"They're very structured. It's pretty straightforward. It takes little bit obviously to get used to and knowing your routes so you're not thinking on the ice, you're just reacting, but it's coming. It's starting to feel good. I really like the group here. We're extremely deep, got a good back end and obviously good goaltending. You add all those things together and you should end up being pretty successful."

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Hoffman scored 59 points (29 goals, 30 assists) in 69 regular-season games with the Florida Panthers last season and five points (three goals, two assists) in four Stanley Cup Playoff games. He's one of seven players to score at least 22 goals in each of the past six seasons (Patrick Kane, Nikita Kucherov, Brad Marchand, Sean Monahan, Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares).

The Blues will look to Hoffman to provide offense with five-time 30-goal scorer Vladimir Tarasenko recovering from Sept. 17 shoulder surgery. The forward is expected to be reevaluated in February.

"Talking to Mike, we started this obviously months ago when free agency started," general manager Doug Armstrong said at the start of training camp. "A lot of conversations we've had with players is that contracts aren't deemed the value you have in the League, it's deemed the amount of [NHL salary] cap space that teams have.

"Mike got into a situation where he wasn't comfortable with some of the offers that he had, so he was willing to look at a shorter-term deal or coming with us on a tryout. Obviously, our plans are to get him signed. Then you start selling what you have, and we believe the strength of our team is down the middle of the ice. ... I think when you're trying to sell a winger to come to your organization, you're trying to sell the ability to play with good players."

Selected by the Ottawa Senators in the fifth round (No. 129) of the 2009 NHL Draft, Hoffman has scored 359 points (172 goals, 187 assists) in 493 regular-season games with the Senators and Panthers and 19 points (10 goals, nine assists) in 29 playoff games.

NHL.com independent correspondent Louie Korac contributed to this report