Montreal Canadiens: Cole Caufield Named USA Assistant Captain

Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield will be an assistant captain for USA.

Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield will wear an A on his sweater as an assistant captain for the United States at the upcoming World Junior Hockey Championship.

Caufield is returning to the team after playing a depth role at last year’s event. He scored a goal and an assist in five games for USA a year ago. Though he had just one goal, it was a big one. He scored the overtime winner in their final round robin game to ensure the team finished in second place in their Group.

The Americans would be shutout by Finland in the quarterfinals and go home empty handed, ending Caufield’s first World Junior experience on a bad note.

He has a chance to erase that memory and looks poised to do so. Caufield was off to a great start to his NCAA season with Wisconsin before heading to the World Junior camp. The goal scoring right winger had six goals and six assists for 12 points in ten college games before joining the American World Junior squad.

He has clearly made an impression on his teammates, as he was voted by them to  take on a leadership role for the tournament.

Caufield made quite an impression in his first and only exhibition game of the World Juniors. USA played Finland on Tuesday night and he scored a pair of goals within 35 seconds of each other and was named played of the game for USA. He looked great creating offence on a line with Brendan Brisson and Matt Boldy to start, and then Matt Boldy and Matt Beniers later in the game.

Caufield was also in the slot on the power play and had a few chances from there throughout the night. Being on the ice with elite set-up men like Trevor Zegras and Cam York with the man advantage is going to give Caufield an awful lot of chances to score and when he gets chances to score he usually puts them in the back of the net.

His first game will be tomorrow night against Russia at 9:30 PM Eastern time.