Cole Caufield: Is this the year?

[Trenbohabs]

Marchessault is like an inch taller and won the Conn Smythe like 18 months ago..

He had the run of his life surrounded by an amazing group, but hes still a 60 pts player. I believe Marchessault is ALOT stronger on his stick and puck possession. Caufield is a pure goal scorer and marchessault is a more complete, better all around player. The Conn Smythe belonged to Eichel IMO also, and im from montreal

 

[WeThreeKings]

Jets were very bad defensively, theres a reason they got swept by a very bad team in Montreal. Caufield will never be able to win 1v1 battles, if you played at the junior major league level you would realise how hard it is to fight in corners against guys 40 pounds heavier and 6" taller. You dont win games with snipers, you win games with puck possession time, battles, gaining every inch you can, forechecking, hitting, blocking shots. Theres a reason no past cup champions had a 5'7 unidimentionnal sniper in their top 6. Next time you watch a habs game look carefully how painful it is for caufield to keep the puck while having a guy on his back and thats regular season.

Yesterday instead of blocking the wrister from the point he moved away and deflected it with his stick. Thats unacceptable

Suzuki was amazing in his first playoffs thought.

You can say all you want - he was effective against bigger, heavier teams in the play-offs, most notably the conference and stanley cup finals.

That's the truth. Who cares if he can't win 1v1 battles with physicality if he gets pucks in other situations, turns it into offense and goals. Which is what he did. As a rookie when he was much physically weaker than he is today.

5'8 = bad is not good analysis. He finds a way to score and he did so against the biggest, strongest teams that the NHL had to offer in the hardest time of year to score, in his first taste of NHL action.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

no.


obviously you dont differiencate playoff hockey than regular season hockey. Caufield scored most of his goals short side in the left circle this year, but generated almost no offense other than that. it is WAY harder to score in playoffs. I trade Caufield for a bigger winger that can make 70 pts anyday of the week. Debrincat was a 40 goals scorer but got traded 2 times, because hes almost unidimentionnal.

I don’t care how he scored his goals. I care that he scores at a high rate. Almost all his goals came from in close last year because his shot was so bad from mid ice. Now that shot has returned and he’s scoring at a crazy rate. He's shown he can score from anywhere when healthy.

Goaltending, overall defense, opportunist and luck wins you cups, a lineup of 12 caufield would get destroyed vs 12 matt tkatchuk in playoffs hockey. have a good day

We weren’t discussing defense or goaltending. We were discussing your thoughts that Caufield wasn’t a first liner and started talking him down.

People said Bossy would get destroyed, Kane would get destroyed... Yzerman... we've already seen that Cole can score in the playoffs. Raw rookie and walked right in with no issues. He's been dealing with bigger players his whole life. If he wasn't going to be successful, he'd have failed by now.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

He had the run of his life surrounded by an amazing group, but hes still a 60 pts player.

He currently has one assist. However, that doesn't capture his playmaking ability anymore than Hutson having one goal is indicative of him being no able to score...

Caufield is likely a consistent 40+ goal guy. It's too early to say this for certain. He's still not quite established yet. But when healthy under MSL, he's already shown he can be among the best goalscorers in the game. And he's not even 25 yet.

I believe Marchessault is ALOT stronger on his stick and puck possession. Caufield is a pure goal scorer and marchessault is a more complete, better all around player. The Conn Smythe belonged to Eichel IMO also, and im from montreal

He didn't have the run of his life at all. If anything he was below where he's been since. But he was good and he did it walking right into the NHL with no games behind him. Raw rookie and he was one of our best forwards.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

So you're putting hall of famers and some of them are monsters physically in the same sentence of a 2nd line sniper at 5'7?

Kane is a superstar, top 5 american player ever, made everybody better, not even close to Caufield.

Again - I was very clear about this - we don't know what Caufield will be. I believe he'll be a premier scorer in this league but he's still somewhat unproven. He's shown he has the ability to do it but doesn't have a full season of results yet. It's a hypothetical at this point as to how good he'll be.

However, assuming he becomes a 50 goal guy, it doesn't matter how big he is. What matters is that he can score. Yes, I gave you HOFer examples - you asked for players who led their teams to cups. Players like that tend to be HOFers. That's how it works, you score, you win games, you win cups.

Once again - I'm not saying he's the next Mike Bossy. I'm not saying he's a sure fire 50 goal guy. I'm saying that he looks like he could be a top goalscorer. I believe he'll be a premier scorer in this league. Consistently 40+ when healthy. And if that proves to be the case, there's every reason to believe he'll be able to do it in the postseason. Most players drop off a little but don't go away completely. And we already have the one run to see that he doesn't shy away from anything.

Scorers get goals in a multitude of ways. Richard was very different from Kane who was very different from Howe who was very different from Bossy... but what matters is that you put the puck in the net. Each player makes his own legacy. No player is exactly the same as any other. CC will forge his own path as others have. He won't be Kane, or Bossy or Lafleur... he'll be Cole Caufield.