Montreal Canadiens' sniper Cole Caufield doesn't focus on his chase of the 50-goal mark; he knows that the best way to get to that point is to play the right way and put the team first, as he has done all season consistently.
Montreal Canadiens sniper Cole Caufield is now just one goal away from the 50-goal mark, but his focus remains in the right place. On L’Antichambre on Thursday night, the panel marveled at the fact that the 25-year-old’s focus remained on getting the win for his team rather than on reaching the 50-goal mark, but that’s not surprising at all, given how Martin St-Louis got through to his players.
Ever since St-Louis took over the team, he has told his players that if they play the right way and make the boring plays on the ice that have to be made to play a complete game, they will be rewarded with more offensive opportunities. It might have taken some time for some players to buy in, but the sniper embraced the coach’s philosophy from the start and became a much more complete player.
It’s that version of Caufield that’s on the cusp of scoring a 50th goal this season, not the unidimensional player who only thought about scoring goals. It’s therefore not at all surprising that the talented winger’s focus remains on doing the right things for the team. He knows perfectly well that it’s how he’ll get the best opportunities to score that 50th goal and to win the Rocket Richard Trophy.
Asked by the media if he thinks about the fact that he’s one goal away from 50 and trailing Nathan MacKinnon by just one goal in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, the sniper replied:
No. And after leaving it for about five seconds, he added, “like yeah!” with a huge grin and explained: I’ll say the same as our coach, you know, we’re focused on our team game and winning games, and I think individual stuff comes with that. Doing the right things, you get more chances and opportunities, so obviously it helps when you’re winning games and stuff, but you’d be crazy not to obviously know what’s going on around the league if you care, so, again, [we’re] still hungry, there’s still a couple more games to go.
Caufield and his first-line teammates Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky all have big individual marks in their sights. The former is chasing 100 points, and the latter 30 goals, but they’re not about to change the way they think of the way they play. They’ll still put the puck in deep and apply good forechecking to get the puck back when they don’t have the numbers to do a good zone entry with a numerical advantage, and they’ll still focus on their defensive game. You don’t change a winning formula; that doesn’t just apply to lineup decisions.
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