Hoffmann Earns First AHL Shot After ECHL Breakout Season

Thirty-two goals in 44 ECHL games is the kind of number that makes front offices pay attention. For Brendan Hoffmann, it finally earned what had eluded him through four professional seasons: a shot at the AHL.

The San Jose Barracuda signed the 24-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina native to a professional tryout contract on Feb. 13, pulling the Idaho Steelheads forward out of the ECHL at a moment when he had already claimed the league's goal-scoring lead. At the time, Hoffmann's 51 points in those 44 games ranked second in the league, and he sat in the top five in shots (tied second with 158), power-play goals (tied third with 7), and game-winning goals (second with 8). His breakout performance included a nine-game point streak from Jan. 10 to Feb. 1 that featured seven straight games with a goal, one short of the longest in Steelheads history. He'd also been selected to represent Idaho at the 2026 ECHL All-Star Game in January.

The call came because San Jose needed bodies badly. The Barracuda lost AHL All-Star Cam Lund and Ethan Cardwell to season-ending injuries within days of each other, then learned Shane Bowers would miss the rest of the regular season. Centers Filip Bystedt and Colin White missed a combined 15 games over the same stretch. The Barracuda scoured the ECHL for solutions and landed on the league's leading goal scorer.

Hoffmann wasted little time announcing himself at the higher level. He scored his first AHL goal against the Calgary Wranglers, finishing a Jack Thompson feed at 16:46 of the third period to tie the game 3-3 and force overtime. He went on to score four goals in 16 games for San Jose, adding four assists for eight points, a respectable AHL debut production for a player who had never set foot on an AHL ice sheet before this season.

The 6-foot-3, 223-pound right wing arrived carrying 237 ECHL games worth of experience with Reading, Atlanta, and Idaho, totaling 157 career points. His 2025-26 season in Boise was the year everything clicked: he'd already surpassed his previous career highs in both goals and points before February arrived, capping a four-point performance against the Utah Grizzlies that included the first hat trick of his career. Despite not suiting up for Idaho since early February, he still led the Steelheads in both goals and points as the season wound down.

For a player who went undrafted, spent three-plus seasons grinding through ECHL stops, and had to wait until injuries forced someone else's hand to get his AHL chance, Hoffmann's performance with the Barracuda made a credible case that he belonged there all along.