This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cole Caufield
Montreal Canadiens Right Wing
Four hundred and forty attempts at 5-8 and 175 pounds, and nine goals short of his own career rate.
| 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 | MTL | 46 | 26 | 10 | 36 | -10 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 158 | 16.5 | 18:03 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 82 | 28 | 37 | 65 | -4 | 16 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 314 | 8.9 | 19:25 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 205 | 81 | 68 | 149 | -39 | 30 | 21 | 0 | 15 | 690 | 11.7 | 17:57 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
All 82 games, 28 goals and 37 assists for 65 points, 9 on the power play, 16 penalty minutes, 19:25 a night and minus-4. He took 49.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,213 minutes, the 46th percentile, and his ice went 59-44 against an expectation of 55.03-57.24.
Four goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and thirteen fewer conceded than they called for — the largest goaltending gain of anybody on this roster.
The Finesse Game
440 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 32 per cent from inside 20, 314 of them on goal, converted at 8.9 per cent against a career 11.74.
Twenty-eight goals on 314 shots is nine below what his own career rate would have produced. 68 career assists in 205 games. The shot is the entire player — it is released from the left circle before a goaltender has finished setting — and 440 attempts in a season says he knows it.
The Physical Game
He is 5-8 and 175 and avoids contact entirely, which is the correct decision.
16 penalty minutes in 82 games is one of the lowest rates in the league. He does not forecheck, does not win the wall, and is moved off the puck by anybody who gets a hand on him.
The Intangibles
Fifteenth overall in 2019 out of Mosinee, Wisconsin, two years at Wisconsin, four seasons, and 149 points in 205 games.
He is 23 and has scored 23, 26 and 28 in his three real seasons. The volume is already there; if the conversion returns to his career rate this is a forty-goal winger.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,213 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49%
- 46th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.5%
- 41st 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: 59 for, 44 against. Expected: 55.0 and 57.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 20 points above where the numbers do. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1213 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Suzuki82%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.0% — 2.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,213 minutes at five-on-five — 84th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 50.5% | 42.2% | 47.3% |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 49.9% | 46.0% | 44.8% |
| Mike Matheson | 48.8% | 49.2% | 41.4% |
50.5% together, 42.2% for him apart and 47.3% for Suzuki apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
440 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 33 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.