Montreal Canadiens' sniper Cole Caufield didn't have a good postseason, and he's very much aware of that, but don't expect management to panic over that.
Montreal Canadiens’ sniper Cole Caufield had a fantastic season with the Habs. He set career highs in both goals (51) and points (88) and played a huge part in the team’s regular-season success. 40 of his 51 goals were scored at even strength, and he led the league in both overtime goals (5) and game-winning goals (12). However, he wasn’t so successful in the playoffs, and he didn’t shy away from that fact:
Honestly, I sucked; that’s just plain and simple. I want to be a lot better, I expect a lot more out of myself, and my teammates and coaches do too, so I think there’s a lot more out there. I’m nowhere near satisfied with how that went, so… You’re getting tough matchups, but you get that all year, so it’s nothing to do with that. I think I could be a whole lot better, and there’s a long way to go.
Clearly, Caufield feels like he has a lot to prove in the postseason, and when the time comes next year to play postseason hockey, he’ll have a chip on his shoulder and remember how he felt after the elimination at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes.
When Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes were asked about their top line’s performance in the playoffs, they made it clear that they weren’t about to panic. Gorton explained:
I think the playoffs were kind of a little bit of a flip from the regular season, right? In the regular season, our top line kind of drove everything all the time. We probably asked a lot of them. In the playoffs, we got some secondary scoring, quite a bit, really impactful guys down the bottom of our lineup. Listen, as I said, we’re asking a lot from our top guys, and maybe that was a part of it. They did find a way to get on the sheet still. I think Nick ends up pretty much close to a point a game in the playoffs, playing against some of the best players in the league. I think more importantly for them, it’s going through it and understanding what it’s going to take and how to manage themselves going forward. To be able to get through the playoffs, round after round, is difficult.
Hughes then interjected:
The only thing I would add to that Marc-Antoine [Godin], being here in Canada it’s going to be a little bit in the narrative going into the Cup final that there was that belief that certain players in Toronto underperformed in the playoffs, one playoff season doesn’t necessarily reflect another and I think Mitch Marner is sitting atop the playoffs scoring race and it’s not just what he’s doing offensively, he’s contributing to their team being where they are. And, if we look around, at the three series that we had, the three teams that we played in the playoffs, it wasn’t necessarily their top scorers that were their top scorers, including Carolina right? I think it’s being offensively driven more by Stankoven, Blake and Hall, even if it wasn’t necessarily the case in the regular season. So, we just have to get better, period.
It’s not surprising to see Gorton and Hughes step up for their top line, and the analogy with the Marner situation does make sense. After all, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ brass and the media covering the team felt he wasn’t a good playoff performer, which eventually led to his departure. Less than a year later, chances are the Leafs are dearly regretting the way they handled the Marner case. The Canadiens are not going to panic because their top line didn’t produce as much in the playoffs as it did in the regular season. There’s no reason to do so when this team is still young and gaining some valuable experience, especially when it comes to the postseason.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t as impactful in the playoffs as he was in the regular season, Caufield had quite a season, and that’s what should be taken away from his 2025-26 campaign. Montreal finally has a 50-goal scorer again, and the city has waited long enough to get that; it should really enjoy it.
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