Canadiens: Cole Caufield Has Strong First Half, Could Be A Hab This Year

The Montreal Canadiens drafted Cole Caufield 15th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. He just finished the first half of his first NCAA season with Wisconsin. He’s been great, and could be with the Habs shortly after the trade deadline.

The Montreal Canadiens were fortunate to have Cole Caufield fall to them at the 2019 NHL Draft. They went into the draft in the dreaded zone where they didn’t earn a playoff spot but also didn’t get an early pick at the draft to really excite the fanbase.

Well, they fired up the fanbase pretty good when they announced Cole Caufield’s name after he surprisingly fell to them at 15th. He had proven to be an excellent offensive player, especially as a goal scorer which is why it was surprising he would be available at 15. He had scored 72 goals and 100 points in 64 games for the United States National U-18 Team. He scored 14 goals in seven games at the World Under-18 Championships in April.

Caufield headed to Wisconsin to play NCAA Hockey this season and just finished up a very strong first half. First year players don’t always light it up in college hockey but Caufield wasted no time acclimatizing himself to the new league.

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In his first weekend of games for Wisconsin he scored four goals and added an assist in two games. With the college hockey season on hiatus for Christmas break and students writing exams, Caufield sits at 12 goals and 20 points in 18 games. Alex Turcotte, his teammate and sometimes linemate, was taken fifth overall in the same draft and has 17 points in 18 games. Trevor Zegras went 9th to the Anaheim Ducks and has 17 points in 16 games. Matt Boldy was taken three spots before Caufield and has just one goal and three points in 15 games.

So, Caufield is outscoring all of the other players who were taken ahead of him and are currently playing NCAA Hockey. in fact, he is ahead of all but 12 players in scoring in the entire country at the moment with his 20 points. Caufield’s twelve goals trail only Tyce Thompson and Jack Cotton who have 13 each.

It is clear that Caufield is having a tremendously successful season. The same can’t be said for the team he plays on.

Wisconsin had an incredible recruiting class this season with Caufield being joined by Turcotte and Dylan Holloway up front. This gave the team great offensive depth, and added to a veteran defence anchored by K’Andre Miller it looked like Wisconsin could be a great team.

However, they stumble into the winter break as a team that has won just one of their past seven games. They have an overall record of 7-10-1 but are just 2-7-1 against teams in the Big Ten Conference. They have 16 games left in the new year, and 14 of them are against conference opponents that they have struggled against thus far. Wisconsin was once ranked around tenth overall in the country but haven’t been given any consideration for a top 20 spot in the rankings the past few weeks.

If they continue to struggle in the new year, they could possibly finish last among the seven teams in the Big Ten Conference. I know, it’s a little misleading but there are seven teams in the Big Ten.

If they finish last or close to it they will have a really difficult opponent in the opening round of the conference playoffs. Those games will take place the weekend of March 6-8 with the higher seed (likely not Wisconsin) hosting all three games of a best-of-three playoff. If Wisconsin loses that series, their season would be over.

This would not be great news for the Cheeseheads, but it could work out excellent for the Montreal Canadiens.

Last year, the Michigan Wolverines had a disappointing season but fans of the Vancouver Canucks were like vultures hoping the Wolverines would flame out early. When they did, the Canucks quickly signed Quinn Hughes to an entry-level contract on March 10th and he was available to play the remainder of the year in Vancouver.

The Canadiens could do the same thing with Caufield this year. His college season could be over as early as March 7th. If it is, he would be free to join the Habs. At that point in the calendar, the Canadiens would still have 12 games remaining on their schedule.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself trying to predict how many games Caufield could be available to play for the Habs, but Wisconsin allows goals at an alarming rate and they haven’t been able to fix that problem. It certainly makes for the possibility that they could have an early exit.

First, we will have to be satisfied to watch Caufield play for the Americans at the World Juniors later this month. He has always been great when representing his country so I’d expect nothing less from him at this tournament.

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Then, in the new year he will play 16 more games for Wisconsin. Then we will wait and see when he becomes available to sign. If he plays as good in the second half as he has in the first, we will be anxiously hoping for Wisconsin to lose so we can see Caufield in a Habs jersey in early March.

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