Player Discussion How many goals will Cole Caufield score this season?

[Scriptor]

After seeing Lane Hutson's endocrinologist, Caufield seems to have grown two inches by the way he is attacking the dirty areas more than he had originally done at the start of his career in the NHL.

 

[overlords]

let me help you with that

 

[Rapala]

Like others have said, Caufield has taken a huge step forward this season with his overall game. He's everywhere on the ice and his motor and drive to want to make a difference everywhere on the ice is noticeable. He's a huge part of the success of this team and will continue to be going forward. Yes, he's small, the effort and compete level is noticeable every single night. His consistency has really improved.

He has followed Suzuki's lead in understanding how a strong defense leads to offense. We only have to look at how drastically we've cut down our Dzone time.
That alone shows not only how much his line has improved but how much we've improved as a team. More energy for offense was always been high on my list.

 

[OldCraig71]

Cole Caufield wins the award for most improved Hab, he's like the roadrunner out there, always showing up when you least expect it and always trying to produce something.

He used to be a one-trick pony but now his play away from the puck is equally impressive. He played a very good game last night and I'm not even talking about his snipe for a goal.

 

[Ezpz]

It was funny to see the doom and gloom last season that his overall game was changing but his goal totals were down. Now the shoulder is healed and he's kept the playmaking and bullish play and added goals back in. Defense is overstated, he's still something like bottom 2% in the league by advanced defense metrics, but certainly the eye test shows he's way better than he was.

He and Nick are both worth way more than their contracts already. If Slaf can work on his consistency and Demidov is as good as we think we may actually have a good top six. Laine's obviously a PP weapon, just need a real 2C.

 

[Andrei79]

One thing we never saw with previous management's is players adding to their games. Caufields all around game has taken significant strides. It's true development. It's also part of the reason I find it puzzling so many feel MSL is not only not a good coach, but a bottom tier one. The team is overachieving and you have players reinventing their games or taking significant steps ... It's a paradox I haven't seen an answer to.

 

[Victoire HuGo]

One thing we never saw with previous management's is players adding to their games. Caufields all around game has taken significant strides. It's true development. It's also part of the reason I find it puzzling so many feel MSL is not only not a good coach, but a bottom tier one. The team is overachieving and you have players reinventing their games or taking significant steps ... It's a paradox I haven't seen an answer to.

Yet people bitch about the lack of development or Nicholas hiring. Credit to the current players though on not sitting on their laurels and never being satisfied

 

[Rapala]

It was funny to see the doom and gloom last season that his overall game was changing but his goal totals were down. Now the shoulder is healed and he's kept the playmaking and bullish play and added goals back in. Defense is overstated, he's still something like bottom 2% in the league by advanced defense metrics, but certainly the eye test shows he's way better than he was.

He and Nick are both worth way more than their contracts already. If Slaf can work on his consistency and Demidov is as good as we think we may actually have a good top six. Laine's obviously a PP weapon, just need a real 2C.

The smart people were praising Caufield for finding a way to improve areas of his game when he obviously couldn't one time the puck comfortably.
It made Suzuki more of a complete player as he had to take on more shooting and it also made Cole much more of a playmaker and positionally aware.
The payoff came at the tail end of last season when Caufield started feeliing comfortable enough to crash opponents again and start playing an inside game.
Now we had a dual threat and it showed up on the scoreboard. It's funny how he seemed to revert to his old game to start this season and how good he eventually became when he finally incorporated both sides of his game.

 

[BLNY]

I couldn't find his player discussion thread. The last one available seems closed.

Not enough talk about Cole. He's been the best habs forward by far. I know Nick has the points, but Cole has become a complete player under MSL.

He's all over the ice all the time. He rarely makes bad decisions with the puck. What a player. I don't even care if he hits 40, he's been playing like a stud.

I would still put Nick ahead of him, but there's no denying that CC has worked very hard to develop into a complete player.

 

[Ezpz]

Yet people bitch about the lack of development or Nicholas hiring. Credit to the current players though on not sitting on their laurels and never being satisfied

People want to believe they're smarter than others. You see it in every aspect of life from politics to sports to relationships. It's hard to trust that others are doing their job properly once you've seen how incompetent people are in real life, so they naturally assume everyone else is dumb. But they fail to realize that people can have different competencies and them being good as a welder or something like that doesn't mean they understand medicine or other such things. So you've got all these people who want to believe them being the best burger flipper means they could run hockey team ops.

The truth is we don't work for the Habs or see day-to-day operations so we don't actually know who's competent and who's the version of Brad the lazy and useless motherf***er from our day-to-day lives. So we guess who is good or bad at their job based on historically true things; and the truth in hockey is that it is 90% of the time the coach's or GM's fault because they're the public face of the organization.

So there becomes the sentiment that everything bad is the coach's fault and everything good is from the players or some undersung hero. We all parroted how Timmins deserved a bigger role in the organization because he drafted McDonagh, Subban and Patches and didn't want to trade McDonagh when the org did. We saw one instance of him being right, and thought he was the only good part of a rotten organization.

Except he was just like us, he took credit for the good shit at his work and blamed the failings on his employers. Oh I didn't want Leblanc, he wanted Kreider. I wanted John Carlson when we traded the first for Tanguay. Yeah I would have taken Debrincat and Girard. Oh I wanted Giroux but I was overruled. It's easy to say that shit in hindsight but the reality was he wanted to trade up to take Lernout over the 15 or so good NHLers that came out of the 2013 third round. And he made a lot of those sorts of mistakes. Just he only mentioned the good things he would have done when the dust is settled. When the American player was the best, he wanted American players and that was his reputation. But when the American player was worse, he wanted the Quebec player. Except the reality is he drafted the weaker player in multiple instances and had excuses for why. McDonagh panned out. Patches over Perron was debatable but I don't think Perron was ever close to Patches at driving a line. Yet he also did Fischer over Giroux and Leblanc over Kreider.

So we shouldn't being throwing grains of salt at people, but alas, we are hockey fans. And predominantly men. And that is what we are good at, bitching and complaining and backseat driving. But we won't admit it, we will just say those are womanly traits, even though they probably get more shit done than us.

But anyways, when we are winning, Marty good, when we are losing, Marty bad. No room for nuance. I will optimistically say I have not seen youth in our organization develop this well since I started following the Habs, outside of outliers like Subban, Patches, Price Gally, Markov, Saku. Not in my lifetime of watching (not old enough for 70s sorry) have we had a concentrated movement that all matured and developed at the same time the way we're seeing now.

And I'm sure Brad the lazy motherf***er is competent at something too, just not at working or being not a lazy motherf***er.

 

[Rapala]

Yet people bitch about the lack of development or Nicholas hiring. Credit to the current players though on not sitting on their laurels and never being satisfied

It's easy to see some of the work he's done with players rolling off checks and coming up with pucks. Suzuki has made some spectacular plays using edgework to create space along the wall while gaining the zone. Our Dmen have all improved at stripping pucks and deflecting shots IMO.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I couldn't find his player discussion thread. The last one available seems closed.

Not enough talk about Cole. He's been the best habs forward by far. I know Nick has the points, but Cole has become a complete player under MSL.

He's all over the ice all the time. He rarely makes bad decisions with the puck. What a player. I don't even care if he hits 40, he's been playing like a stud.

Our best and most consistent player this season. Suzuki has been off the hook since the tourney but Caufield has been day in and out our most consistent player.

Believe it or not this is his first full healthy season under MSL. And his first full season since his rookie year. He had a fantastic 23 cut short by injury. 24 he played really, really well but couldn't shoot worth a damn. His numbers though? Consistent all year long. He just couldn't score from mid ice.

The big difference is that last year he had trouble holding onto the puck sometimes. That was unique to last season though and very likely a result of his injury.

I still think he has another gear. Probably would've already been there if he hadn't had to deal with the stupid shoulder. I believe he will get to 50 at some point and have multi 50 goal years. I could be wrong, but he's shown enough to make be believe that he will get there. Maybe Marty will even put him on the ice for some empty net opportunities if he gets close.

 

[TheBlob]

I still think he has another gear. Probably would've already been there if he hadn't had to deal with the stupid shoulder. I believe he will get to 50 at some point and have multi 50 goal years. I could be wrong, but he's shown enough to make be believe that he will get there. Maybe Marty will even put him on the ice for some empty net opportunities if he gets close.

50 goals is a golden number very few select players can reach nowadays. Not saying he'll never do it, but he would indeed need to shift gears. He was on that pace at some point in the season but keeping this on a full calendar is quite a challenge.

40 is the new 50 compared to other hockey eras. Still not easy, but more realistic i think. At 33 goals with 16 games to play, it's totally feasible for him this year unless he goes into a slump or get injured. And this is the target i can see him repeat.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

50 goals is a golden number very few select players can reach nowadays. Not saying he'll never do it, but he would indeed need to shift gears. He was on that pace at some point in the season but keeping this on a full calendar is quite a challenge.

40 is the new 50 compared to other hockey eras. Still not easy, but more realistic i think. At 33 goals with 16 games to play, it's totally feasible for him this year unless he goes into a slump or get injured. And this is the target i can see him repeat.

He scored 48 in his first 82 under MSL. Yes, it's split between two seasons but half that number comes from his rookie year. This is the first real healthy season he's had since his rookie year. I think he's got another gear. I've always believed he could get to 50.

That being said, he never has. It's speculative on my part. In the past I thought Chris Higgins could get to 40... and that never worked out. Let's see if he gets to 40 first. That'd be great considering his injuries from last year.

 

[ZUKI]

As of this post, he has 17 goals in 27 games (0 games missed). That's a pace of 52 goals over 82 games.

What's your best prediction, how high does he go?

Make a prediction.

25 goals this season. - a very pessimistic guy

 

[CHwest]

Loved him from the start cause he has gifted hands. But he evolved into a much more complete player and he continues to impress me.

Habs and MSL did a very good development job with him. And he has so much enthusiasm, it's contagious.

Only 24 yo and signed long-term. Drafted by Bergevin and signed by Hugues. So glad we have him.

I too an most impressed that he has rounded out his game. I always envisioned him as a PP specialist, but he has become a valuable full time player.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

It was funny to see the doom and gloom last season that his overall game was changing but his goal totals were down. Now the shoulder is healed and he's kept the playmaking and bullish play and added goals back in. Defense is overstated, he's still something like bottom 2% in the league by advanced defense metrics, but certainly the eye test shows he's way better than he was.

He and Nick are both worth way more than their contracts already. If Slaf can work on his consistency and Demidov is as good as we think we may actually have a good top six. Laine's obviously a PP weapon, just need a real 2C.

The defense metrics you're talking about are based on ES and it's a mistake to look up ES defensive stats in an age of increasing empty net goals. He's -9 With Empty Net and those bring down his ES stats.

Caufield's stats at 5v5 are much higher than that. He's +13 at 5v5. Fenwick, Corsi and everything else are much higher if you look up 5v5 rather than ES.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

One thing we never saw with previous management's is players adding to their games. Caufields all around game has taken significant strides. It's true development. It's also part of the reason I find it puzzling so many feel MSL is not only not a good coach, but a bottom tier one. The team is overachieving and you have players reinventing their games or taking significant steps ... It's a paradox I haven't seen an answer to.

People claiming MSL is dumb are only projecting.

MSL is helping them to play better as individuals, which would inevitably upgrade how they play as a group.

All those comments about -no structure- -no defensive play- were simply misguided hot takes.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Caufield would run head first through a wall for this team and his captain. I love his commitment to the forecheck and board play this year. Not turning it over much either

 

[Redux91]

Even just hitting 40 is an enormous Montreal Canadiens feat honestly

Absolutely do not wanna pressure this guy to 'gotta tet to hit 50 every year!'
Just keep playing great
Topping out as a 40g 40a guy isn't the worst thing in the world at all lol

 

[Andrei79]

Even just hitting 40 is an enormous Montreal Canadiens feat honestly

Absolutely do not wanna pressure this guy to 'gotta tet to hit 50 every year!'
Just keep playing great
Topping out as a 40g 40a guy isn't the worst thing in the world at all lol

A few less goals if it means playing so well in every other parts of his game is perfectly fine. The playoffs require that sort of "sacrifice".

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

People claiming MSL is dumb are only projecting.

MSL is helping them to play better as individuals, which would inevitably upgrade how they play as a group.

All those comments about -no structure- -no defensive play- were simply misguided hot takes.

I think there's some truth to us being unstructured at the start of the year. MSL was introducing a new system and it seems to have taken a while to get used to it.

But I totally agree that the criticisms of him were way over the top. Moreover, so many of his critics couldn't give concrete arguemnts as to why he was poor. It was 'we're losing so he sucks' type posts. Totally ignoring the injury issues and Kirby Dach struggling to find his form.

Key players have advanced very well under him. Slaf's second half coming out party is likely a result of coaching as you're now seeing him average 220 shots per 82 vs 110 in the first half. Obviously credit to the player for listening but there's no doubt that the coaches encouraged him to shoot a lot more. That's resulted in way more opportunity and better stats. Caufield (as has been well documented) was well on his way to bustville under Ducharme. MSL came in and let him play his game.

And that's an underrated skill. So many coaches want to change the player. Therrien for example wanted PK Subban to dump and chase. He wanted Galchenyuk to 'grind' whatever that means... He didn't let players play to their strengths. How many years did we see us forcing skilled players to trap or grind or dump and chase or whatever... it's like we were allergic to skill. MSL doesn't do that. It may not seem like a big deal but it is. Staying out of the way is an underappreciated skill.

I don't know if he's a guy who can take us all the way. He's doesn't have the reputation of an X's and O's coach. But he's been amazing for development. I thought he was a window dressing hire but I was dead wrong. And no player has benefitted more than Cole Caufield.

I just wish he'd give him some PK time and an opportunity for some empty net goals.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Even just hitting 40 is an enormous Montreal Canadiens feat honestly

Absolutely do not wanna pressure this guy to 'gotta tet to hit 50 every year!'
Just keep playing great
Topping out as a 40g 40a guy isn't the worst thing in the world at all lol

Pressure? No. But I'm sure that's his own target. You KNOW he wants to get there.

I think he can. I've said so for a long time but injuries have gotten in the way. We'll see... he needs to get to 40 first and that's not a certainty this season.

 

[red devil]

 

[waitin425]

Cole Caufield deserves to be on the American Olympic team.