A second member of the Montreal Canadiens’ first line has won an NHL award today. The league announced that Cole Caufield has been voted the winner of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, which is presented annually to the player who exhibits a high standard of sportsmanship, gentlemanly conduct, and playing ability.
In April, Caufield was named a finalist for the award alongside Los Angeles Kings center Anže Kopitar and Ottawa Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson. He collected 45 first-place votes from the Professional Hockey Writers Association, and 776 points. Kopitar, who finished second, collected 38 first-place votes and 602 points. Kopitar, who is now retired, is a three-time winner of the Trophy, while Sanderson has not won it but has received votes twice before in his career.
Caufield is the first Canadien to win the Lady Byng since Swedish forward Mats Naslund took home the award in 1988. The only other Canadien to win the Trophy is Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Toe Blake.
The 2019 first-round pick does have some other connections to past winners of the award, both of whom were immensely skilled and productive scoring wingers despite lacking prototypical NHL size.
Caufield’s coach Martin St. Louis won the Lady Byng in 2014, and has overseen Caufield’s development into one of the league’s premier goal scorers.
Caufield was also a former international teammate and close friend of the late Johnny Gaudreau, who won the award in 2017. Caufield called Gaudreau his “hero” and changed his jersey number from 22 to 13 in September 2024 to honor Gaudreau’s memory. Now, he joins Gaudreau as a winner of the Lady Byng.
Although the Lady Byng is an award with criteria for winning that is inherently subjective, it’s difficult to argue that Caufield is not an eminently deserving winner. The 25-year-old has always been a lethal goal scorer, dating back to his days at the U.S. National Team Development Program, and never was that more apparent than his second and final season playing college hockey, when he scored 30 goals in 31 games and won the Hobey Baker Award.
But after he underwent season-ending shoulder surgery during the 2022-23 campaign, there was some worry that the shoulder issues might keep him from ever reaching such heights as a goal scorer at the NHL level. In the season following his injury, Caufield scored just 28 goals – a respectable total, but far from fulfilling the lofty expectations placed on him. The following season, though, Caufield began reminding the league why he was such a highly-rated goal-scoring prospect. He potted a career-high 37 goals in 2024-25, setting up his career year in 2025-26.
Caufield finished the 2025-26 season with 51 goals, falling short of the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy by just two tallies. But Caufield did score more goals against a goalie than MacKinnon, who led the league with eight empty-net goals. So while he did not finish the season with a Rocket Richard Trophy, he has not left 2025-26 empty-handed. He became the first Canadiens forward to score 50 goals since 1990, joining an illustrious group of players including Hall of Fame inductees Guy Lafleur, Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion, Steve Shutt, and Richard.
He was able to reach those heights as a goal scorer (and playmaker, finishing with 37 assists and 88 total points) while maintaining a play style that falls in line with the spirit of the award. Caufield finished the season with just 14 penalty minutes, and has not reached even 18 penalty minutes in a single regular season for the entirety of his career. He finished 2025-26 with the most goals, and second-most points (behind Winnipeg Jets winger Kyle Connor) of any player registering fewer than 20 penalty minutes.
Photos courtesy of Stan Szeto-Imagn Images