Montreal Canadiens: Cole Caufield To Make NHL Debut

Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield has been stuck in a sort of limbo for the past week.

The Habs star prospect has been on the NHL team’s taxi squad during their trip to Alberta. This means he traveled with the team and has been at practice, but he was not eligible to play in any games.

Heading into the fifth, and final game of this road trip, Caufield will finally get to suit up in his first ever NHL game.

It couldn’t come at a more important time for the 2020-21 Montreal Canadiens. They have dropped three of four on this road trip, including two in a row to the Calgary Flames. This has put the Flames right on the Habs heels as they are four points back. Another win tonight and Calgary would be really putting pressure on the Canadiens for the final playoff spot in the Canadian Divison.

Caufield did everything he could to earn this promotion. He led the NCAA in goals and points, scoring 30 times and finishing with 52 points in 31 games. He was named the Hobey Baker Award winner as college hockey’s best player.

When he was signed to his entry-level contract he was initially placed on the Laval Rocket of the American Hockey League. He scored three goals and four points in two games, including the game’s winning goal in each contest he played.

After being called up, Caufield was placed on the taxi squad and kind of stuck there. The Canadiens didn’t have the cap space to fit him into the roster, and didn’t have enough call ups to use one on Caufield with 15 games to play.

So, he was stuck on taxi squad limbo for a while.

With Jonathan Drouin, Tomas Tatar and Paul Byron currently battling injuries, the Habs needed another forward on their roster. They have officially called Caufield up on an emergency basis to fill the vacancy at forward.

Head Coach Dominique Ducharme didn’t immediately announce line combinations, but he did say that Caufield will be “well surrounded” and will receive power play time.

We will have to wait and see if “well surrounded” means great playmakers like Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Tyler Toffoli or if it means older veterans or defensive players like Eric Staal and Artturi Lehkonen.

No matter who he is playing with it is an exciting day in Habs land. Their best prospect in recent memory will finally get to make his NHL debut tonight.