Could Cole Caufield be Legendary?

In 2011, a 10-year-old kid by the name of Cole Caufield would participate in North America’s biggest youth hockey tournament, the Brick Invitational. The team that Caufield was on, the Chicago Jr. Blackhawks, would end up having 3 future NHLers on that team. Including, Alex Turcotte. Caufield would get 18 points in the only 6 games that each team played in the round robin. Unfortunately, the Jr. Blackhawks would lose in the semis to the eventual champion, the Toronto Bulldogs.

Caufield ended up breaking the record for the most points by a player in the round robin, from the information I could get (2009-2020). This is obviously a tough task but wait until you hear the other names in this tournament: Trevor Zegras (13pts), Jack Hughes (11pts), and even Kirby Dach (2pts). And in net for the Connecticut Yankees was Spencer Knight.

Caufield would hold this record until a kid by the name of Michael Misa tied that record in 2017 with the Toronto Bulldogs. Caufield got 9 goals and 9 assists in 6 games, while Misa got 6 goals and 12 assists in 6 games. So just based off of this one tournament, Misa would be a kid to watch in the coming years. Right now he is playing for the Mississauga Senators U16 AAA, but I would keep an eye on him.

Until juniors, Caufield would go on to play for Team Illinois and Team Wisconsin AAA teams, and he would even play for his high school, Stevens Point Area High.

Through 2017-19, Caufield would play for the United State National Team Development Program (USNTDP) of the USHL. He would also play for the U-17 and U-18 team for a combined 59 games. He would end up getting 63 points in 40 games for the U-17 team and 17 points in 19 games on the U-18 team in his first season. Caufield would be 1 goal short of tying Auston Matthew’s single season record of 55 goals. That year, Caufield also helped bring Team USA to the Eastern Conference Finals of the USHL, only to lose out to the Youngstown Phantoms.

Source: www.usahockeyntdp.com(Photo by Rena Laverty)

In his next season, Caufield would have an even more successful year. Playing in only 28 games that season, he would get 41 points. He would also get 100 points in 64 games with the U-18 team. With the combined 126 goals in the 2 seasons he had with Team USA, Caufield would break the record for most goals scored by a member of Team USA. A record previously held by Phil Kessel. Caufield would also be tied for third in the points category for Team USA (a record held by Jack Hughes).

After the end of the 2018-19 season, Caufield was now eligible for the NHL Draft. As being considered as one of the top prospects in the nation, Caufield would be selected 15th by the Montreal Canadiens.

Caufield would go to play with the University of Wisconsin for 2 seasons. In his freshman year, Caufield would average a goal per game with 36 points in 36 games, tied for third for all freshmen. In those 36 points, Caufield would get 19 goals and 17 assists, tying for first in goals for freshmen. Wisconsin would not do so hot that year, finishing 14-18-2 and being at the bottom of the Big Ten.

After being bummed about the NCAA season, Caufield would get selected to play for Team USA for the U-20 World Juniors. The WJC is the biggest country tournament to show off the top prospects in the world. And with the 2022 one coming up here shortly, I’ll make an article on that soon. Anyways, after getting silver the year before, the United States had high hopes. Especially with big names like Trevor Zegras, Alex Turcotte, and Spencer Knight (you see the foreshadowing from earlier?). In the first game, the US would suffer a tough 4-6 loss to Canada, but would bounce back with a win against Germany the next day. In both of these games, Caufield would go pointless, but in game number 3 against Russia, Caufield would get an assist on an early power play goal. The next game against the Czech Republic needed overtime, so 3 minutes and 14 seconds into overtime, Caufield would score the game-winner.

Thanks to Caufield, USA was able to get the 2nd seed in Group B. However, that meant that they had to play the third seed of Group A, Finland. In the round robin, Finland proved to be a tough team to play against. And that showed as Finland would score early in the third period to win the game 1-0. The United States would finish 6th, their worst finish since 2012.

Caufield went into the 2020-21 NCAA season on fire. By the end of the season Caufield had played 31 games and would almost score a goal per game, scoring 30. In addition to that, he would also get 22 assists, totaling up to 52 points in 31 games. This would be enough to lead the entirety of the NCAA by 5 points. Wisconsin would be the 5th ranked team in the country heading into the Big Ten tournament. They would win the semifinals as they would have a bye for being the 1 seed. They would end up beating Penn State in overtime, 4-3 on a goal by Caufield. The next day, Wisconsin would play Minnesota in the finals. Only to lose 4-6. Caufield would end up scoring a goal, however.

On Selection Day, Wisconsin was revealed to be a 1 seed and set to face off against Bemidji State in the NCAA tournament. Early in the third period, Bemidji State would stretch their lead to 1-5. To help the team get back into the game, Caufield would score 2 straight goals for the Badgers to cut the lead to only 2. But it was too late as Bemidji State would score an empty net goal with 2 seconds left to end Wisconsin’s run.

However, during the NCAA season, Caufield would again play in the World Juniors. To get his revenge on the last season, the United States would win gold against all the odds. Caufield would get 5 points in 7 games.

After that tournament, Caufield would go to play for the Canadiens for the rest of the season. Caufield would play 2 games in the AHL to start out and would get 3 goals and 1 assist in that timeframe. Eventually, after sitting on the taxi squad for a while, Caufield was called up to play his first ever NHL game. On April 26th in Calgary, Alberta, Cole Caufield would make his first NHL appearance. Would take a bit, but on May 1st, Caufield would get his first ever point, an OT winner.

Eventually his first NHL assist would come on May 12th. In the 10 games that Caufield played in the NHL, he would get 5 points (4 goals, 1 assist).

After the regular season, Caufield would help the Canadiens make the playoffs. Caufield would not get a goal in the 4-3 series win against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he would get an assist. But he only played 5 out of the 7 games. In round 2, the Canadiens would sweep the Jets. And with that, Caufield would get 3 assists in those 4 games. In the Conference Finals, Caufield would explode, scoring 4 goals and getting 1 assist in the 6-game series win against Vegas. But, in the Finals, the Canadiens luck would run out as they would lose in 5 games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Caufield would get 3 more assists in the series, and by the end, would be third on the team in points with 4 goals and 8 assists.

Going into the 2021-22 season, Caufield was one of the favorites to win the Calder. However, things would not go as planned. The Canadiens would have a rough start to the season, and Caufield would only get 1 assist in the 10 games he played. After those 10 games, Caufield would be sent down to the AHL affiliate of the Canadiens, the Laval Rocket.

In a game against the Utica Comets, the Comets decided to have a little “fun”. As you would’ve guessed, people didn’t like that.

Utica eventually responded with an apology, but the damage was already done.

Caufield would be sent back up to the NHL after 6 games in the AHL and getting 5 points. Since then, Caufield has got 1 goal and 4 assists in 13 games.

What I think we need to do is just to give him time. Obviously, the Canadiens are not the best team right now, and preforming on a struggling team is really hard. I mean take Jack Hughes for example, he got a rough start early in his career but is now preforming very well now. So just give Caufield some time to pick up with the speed of the game some more and I believe that he will be legendary

Stats from:eliteprospects.com,wikipedia.org,wikipedia.org,teamusa.usahockey.com,hockey-reference.com,http://pointstreaksites.com/view/brickinvitational

*I do want to apologize for taking so long to get out a new article, I have had exams and was focusing more on that, but expect more posts to be coming out in the next couple weeks