It was an interesting season for Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield last year. He was coming off a career season where he had 37 goals and 33 assists but it felt like he was just scratching the surface.
Caufield's performance to date wasn't good enough to be named to Team USA for the Olympics, and it felt like it was a motivating factor for him. Even though Team USA would win gold, by the end of the regular season, there was no arguing that Caufield couldn't have helped them.
He finished the season with 51 goals and 37 assists and won the Lady Byng award for his performance. In the latest Top 20 rankings done by NHL Network, Caufield got the recognition he deserves by being named the ninth-best winger entering the 2026-27 season.
The top spot went to Tampa Bay Lightning's Nikita Kucherov, while the Minnesota Wild (Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy), and the Dallas Stars (Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson) each had two players ahead of Caufield.
Cole Caufield has more to prove and needs to take that next step in the playoffs
The regular season for Cole Caufield was incredible, and it was a special season as he would become the first Montreal Canadiens player to break 50 goals since Stephane Richer did it during the 1989-90 season. He also came up only one goal short of the league lead in the category and would have been the first Montreal Canadiens' player to win the Rocket Richard Trophy.
While he did have 13 points in the playoffs, it just never felt like Caufield was making the impact that he did in the regular season. He finished the playoffs with a shooting percentage of 14%, down over five percentage points from his shooting percentage in the regular season. Caufield also was shooting a lot less with an average of only 2.26 shots per game compared to 3.18 in the regular season.
If the Canadiens want to make it to the Stanley Cup Final, and they certainly got close this past season, they will need a better playoff from Cole Caufield to get it done. This upcoming season will be a big test and if he can do that, then there is no reason he can't jump into the Top 5 in these rankings next year.
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