This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cole Caufield
Montreal Canadiens Right Wing
Five-foot-eight, twenty-three goals at 21, the 9th-most ground covered of 365 forwards and the 2nd-fewest blocks of 393.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | MTL | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 30 | 13.3 | 13:58 |
| 2021-22 | MTL | 67 | 23 | 20 | 43 | -24 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 188 | 12.2 | 16:41 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 77 | 27 | 21 | 48 | -25 | 12 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 218 | 12.4 | 16:20 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
23 goals and 20 assists in sixty-seven games at 16:41 a night, minus-24, ten penalty minutes. Fifteenth overall in 2019, and 77 NHL games at 21. 5-8 and 175 pounds.
The Finesse Game
10.09 shots per 60 is the 89th percentile at 12.2 per cent — real volume, ordinary conversion, and twenty-three goals out of it. Forty-seven per cent from the slot at a 26-foot median.
1.94 even-strength points per 60 is the 60th percentile and thirty per cent of his points came on the power play, off 2:51 a night.
46.4 per cent of the expected goals is the 21st percentile and 47.7 per cent of the attempts the 30th — bad numbers on a club where every number is bad. His ice went 41-52 against an expectation of 36.70-42.46.
The pair file is mildly encouraging in a chapter with little of it. Away from Nick Suzuki, across 566 attempts, he read 48.7 per cent — better than the 45.2 the two managed together, and better than any regular figure on this roster.
The Physical Game
0.38 blocks per 60 is the 2nd-fewest of all 393 qualified forwards and 0.97 hits per 60 is the 5th percentile. He is 175 pounds and does not go near the physical game in either direction.
0.27 penalties taken per 60 is the 8th percentile and his net is the 94th — ten penalty minutes in sixty-seven games. He does not foul and he is not fouled much either.
The Intangibles
10.49 miles per 60 is the 9th-most of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, from a man who is 5-8 and 175 pounds. 22.1 mph is only the 26th percentile, so this is not speed — it is a small player who never stops moving, which is the recurring shape under the good small players in this book.
Twenty-three goals in sixty-seven games at 21, on the worst team in the league, at 5-8. The shot volume is the thing to price and it is already at the 89th percentile. What no back-edition record can show is whether the frame holds up to a full eighty-two, and that is the only real question here.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.15 penalty minutes a game over 67, 8th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“10.49 miles per 60 is the 9th-most of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, from a man who is 5-8 and 175 pounds.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 891 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.4%
- 26th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.7%
- 35th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 52 against. Expected: 36.7 and 42.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 67 games
- Top speed
- 22.1 mph
- 46th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.34 a game
- Distance
- 2.92 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.9 mph
- 71st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 891 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Suzuki65%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- MTL took 46.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.4% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 891 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 45.2% | 48.7% | 45.9% |
| Alexander Romanov | 50.2% | 44.5% | 45.3% |
| Josh Anderson | 50.1% | 44.6% | 45.7% |
45.2% together, 48.7% for him apart and 45.9% for Suzuki apart. He was better away from Suzuki, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Suzuki.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
262 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 25 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.