Montreal Canadiens: Congratulations Shane Pinto, Dryden McKay on Being Runners Up to Cole Caufield

Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield was named to the final three nominees for the Hobey Baker Award yesterday.

The Habs first round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft had a tremendous college career over two seasons with the Wisconsin Badgers. He was great as a freshman, but he was flat out unstoppable as a sophomore.

In his first year of NCAA competition, Caufield led the tough Big Ten Conference in scoring with 19 goals and 16 points in 36 games. His Badgers team failed to live up to pre-season hype, but Caufield was one of a handful of bright spots on the squad.

This season, he was the brightest star in college hockey. He ran away with the goal scoring title, developed his all around game, and was the top point producer in the country. The Stevens Point, Wisconsin native finished the year with 30 goals and 52 points in 31 games. The next highest goal scorer in the country was Sampo Ranta who had 19 in 31 games. Odeen Tufto of Quinnipiac finished five points back of Caufield in the points race.

Caufield ran away with the goals race by so much that, if everyone else in the country multiplied their goals by 1.5, they still wouldn’t match Caufield’s output.

This is why he is going to be the Hobey Baker Award winner as the best player in college hockey.

The other finalists, Shane Pinto and Dryden McKay, had fine seasons, but were nowhere near matching what Caufield did.

Pinto, in his second season with the league’s top ranked team, North Dakota, scored 15 goals and 32 points in 28 games. That means he had one more point than Caufield had goals. That’s a nice season for the Ottawa Senators prospect, but it’s hardly in the same stratosphere as Caufield.

McKay posted some scintillating numbers for Minnesota State, but he gets knocked a bit for playing on a stacked team in a soft conference.

McKay had a 21-3-0 record with a 1.39 goals against average and a .931 save percentage. However, in the WCHA conference, he was facing weaker competition than others and only faced 18.4 shots per game.

The winner will not be announced until April 9th, but it is a poorly kept secret that Cole Caufield will be chosen as the best player in college hockey. His play on the ice proved that long ago.