If you take a look at the goal-scoring leaders in the NHL you will find Sam Reinhart and Leon Draisaitl leading the way at 13, but there are a slew of players just behind at 12, including the Montreal Canadiens' young star Cole Caufield, tied with Mikko Rantanen, William Nylander and Connor McMichael, Washington and the league's biggest surprise.
The question is, can Caufield keep this up? The Montreal Canadiens have had a long history of great forwards, but those are generally pretty far in the past. A kind of sad fact is that the team that donated the trophy rewarded to the player with the most goals in a season has never won it.
In 1998-99, the Montreal Canadiens donated a trophy to commemorate Habs legend Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, who was the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in 50 games.
Unfortunately, the closest a Montreal Canadien has come to winning the Rocket Richard Trophy was former Hab Ilya Kovalchuk winning it over a decade before he played a season with the team. Since 2000, the most goals a Canadiens player has ever scored in a season is Max Pacioretty with 37, how was quite below Alex Ovechkin's 53.
Caufield's Breakout
So far in the year, Caufield has 12 goals in 18 games, and thanks to a two-assist game against Columbus, he now has 3 assists on the year. If that pace continues, Caufield will end the year with 55 goals, and 14 assists.
If Caufield finishes the season with 55 goals, that would be good enough to win the Rocket Richard in 17 of all the Rocket Richard Trophies ever given out, not included shortened seasons. That would be fantastic, and would be the 5th best goal scoring season in Canadiens history, behind a couple Guy Lafleur seasons and one Steve Shutt.
Its not impossible. Especially in recent seasons, goal scoring has seemed to increase, with three straight seasons of 60-plus goal seasons, and Caufield should be aging right into his prime.
Every year Caufield has improved his goal total by at least a little. His first full season was 23 goals, then 26 goals, and then 28 last season. 55 would be a big jump, but a welcome one.
It is hard to determine how long a good streak can go. Its basically a question of skill vs luck. Are all these goals going in because of the shooter and will keep coming, or is it a thing of luck and the goals will dry up?
Shooting percentage is a pretty good indication of the streakiness of the goalscoring. The higher the shooting percentage, the less sustainable it is. The inverse is usually true with lower shooting percentage.
Crunching the Numbers
Caufield has hovered around the average league shooting percentage. In the 13%, 12% and 16% shooting. Last year was a low anomaly, with a shooting percentage of only 8.9%. So far, this year, in a small sample size, Caufield is shooting at a 26.7% clip.
That would be a historic production. Shooting percentage is weird to track without specific parameters. After his first game, Ryan Poehling had basically a 100% shooting percentage. The best shooting percentage by a player over their career with over 200 goals is Craig Simpson.
Of all the active players, Brayden Point's 2016-17 season with 18.62%, followed closely by Leon Draisaitl in 2014-15 with 18.42%. So expecting Caufield to keep a 20%+ shooting percentage is unrealistic.
The good thing is that the other goal leaders this year also have astronomical shooting percentages. Draisaitl and Reinhart have matching 27.7% shooting, and that is to be expected so early in the year.
So, we can do some quick math. If he keeps this unrealistic shooting percentage up, Caufield should finish with around 55 goals. But we can try to put a more realistic number as well.
So far, Caufield is shooting around 2.5 shots a game (45/18). Looking at how many games are left, Caufield should take around 160 more shots this year. That would make the total 205, which is a little low. We could raise that up a little to 235, to be a bit more lenient.
If we take a more realistic shooting percentage, say 16%, still high, but not unreasonable, we can expect Caufield to score around 30 more goals, which puts his total around 40 for the year. Still really good, but not the historic pace he has been on so far.
40 goals would still be a huge accomplishment, and allowing for some margin of error, its possible for Caufield can score anywhere between 40 and 50 goals. And if the other top goal scorers similarily slow down, he can stay in the top goalscoring conversation throughout the year.