Cole Caufield Recalled From AHL
When Cole Caufield was sent to the AHL at the beginning of November, it was never meant to be for long. The young Montreal Canadiens forward has made his way back to the NHL, recalled today. To make room, Alex Belzile has been assigned to the Laval Rocket.
Caufield put on a show yesterday for Laval in a victory over the Toronto Marlies, recording nine shots, scoring once during regulation, and again in the shootout. Overall in six games for the Rocket, he tallied five points and 24 shots on goal. His demotion was mostly about confidence, and seeing a spark of that high-flying offensive ability again seems like it was enough for the Canadiens to bring him back up.
Of course, he’s not returning to a better situation in the NHL. The Canadiens have lost their last three games and are only ahead of the last-place Ottawa Senators in the Atlantic Division because they’ve played three more games. The team has the second-worst goal differential in the entire NHL at -23 and has a 4-12-2 record overall. A huge reason for that is a lack of goal scoring, which Caufield should help, but he’s certainly not coming into a positive situation.
The Canadiens will welcome in the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, a game that will likely see Caufield make his return to the lineup. Through the ten games he played before his stint in the AHL, he had just a single point.
Cole Caufield Sent To AHL
The Montreal Canadiens have decided that Cole Caufield needs some more seasoning, sending the high-flying winger to the minor leagues after a tough start to his season. Mathieu Perreault has been moved to injured reserve, while Michael Pezzetta has been recalled to take Caufield’s place on the active roster.
Caufield, 20, came into the season as one of the presumptive favorites for the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year, after his outstanding performance in the 2021 playoffs. The undersized winger had four goals and 12 points for the Canadiens on their Stanley Cup Finals run, showing blazing speed and huge offensive upside. That offensive performance has been nowhere to be found this season, however, as Caufield has recorded just a single assist and no goals through the first ten games of the season.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the fact that at least some of that is due to poor luck through the first month of the season. Caufield is still tied for the second-most shots on the team and it’s not like anyone is really lighting up the score sheet in Montreal. Free agent signing Mike Hoffman leads the team in goals with four, while Perreault’s hat trick from earlier this season puts him in second place at three. Usually, reliable offensive players like Tyler Toffoli, Brendan Gallagher, Nick Suzuki, and Jeff Petry have all been unable to break through, making Caufield’s struggles at least a little bit easier to swallow.
The fact is though, if the Canadiens are going to struggle so badly to create offense at the NHL level, why not let Caufield show what he can do with big minutes in the minor leagues. The 2019 first-round pick basically skipped the AHL, playing just two games there last season after his time at the University of Wisconsin ended. He’ll now go back to work on his game and get his confidence back, while the Canadiens give Pezzetta a chance at the NHL level.
Injury Updates: Lehner, Canadiens, Zamula, Athanasiou, De Haan
While Robin Lehner left Thursday’s game after two periods due to injury, Vegas head coach Peter DeBoer told reporters, including David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that the decision to pull him was more precautionary than a sign of a significant injury. Lehner will be counted to carry on a much bigger workload this season with Laurent Brossoit now the backup for the Golden Knights so it’s certainly understandable that DeBoer erred on the side of caution in Lehner’s first appearance of the preseason.
Other injury news and notes from around the NHL:
- After stopping on-ice workouts for defenseman Joel Edmundson and goaltender Carey Price, both Canadiens are expected to resume those next week, mentions TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie (Twitter link). Edmundson was listed as day-to-day entering training camp while Price’s availability for the start of the season remains in question following offseason surgery. Winger Cole Caufield is also close to returning after being shut down following a minor injury during the warmup of an intrasquad game.
- Flyers defenseman Yegor Zamula will miss the next three to four weeks due to a strain in his hip/groin area, relays Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia. The 21-year-old is one of Philadelphia’s more promising prospects and made his NHL debut with a pair of games last season. While he had an outside shot at breaking camp with the team, this will basically put an end to that possibility.
- Kings winger Andreas Athanasiou sustained an undisclosed injury in practice earlier this week but at this point, he’s unlikely to miss the start of the regular season, notes Zach Dooley of LA Kings Insider. The 27-year-old had 23 points in 47 games last season, earning him a $2.7MM contract to avoid salary arbitration.
- Blackhawks defenseman Calvin de Haan revealed to reporters, including Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago (Twitter link) that he played the second half of last season with a fractured tibia. The 30-year-old is entering the final year of his contract that carries a $4.45MM cap hit and will need a much better showing this season to have a shot at coming close to that AAV next summer. Being healthy now is certainly a step in the right direction on that front.
Snapshots: Lundqvist, Caufield, Popugaev
Immediately after Henrik Lundqvist announced his retirement last month, the New York Rangers confirmed that they would be retiring his number. They’ve now announced that on January 28, 2022, his No. 30 will be raised to the rafters and never worn again. Lundqvist is the franchise leader among goaltenders in games played, wins, saves, and save percentage (among those with at least 60 appearances).
He will become the 11th player to have his number retired by the team, joining Ed Giacomin (1), Brian Leetch (2), Harry Howell (3), Rod Gilbert (7), Andy Bathgate (9), Adam Graves (9), Mark Messier (11), Vic Hadfield (11), Jean Ratelle (19) and Mike Richter (35).
- The Montreal Canadiens have confirmed that young star Cole Caufield will be out for a week with an upper-body injury suffered over the weekend. The 20-year-old played against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday and then was pulled from the warmup for an intrasquad game on Sunday. With how important he is going to be for the team this year, keeping him healthy to start the season is extremely important for the Canadiens.
- It appears as though former New Jersey Devils prospect Nikita Popugaev has ended his hockey career, listing himself as an “ex hockey player” on Instagram. Popugaev was a fourth-round pick of the Devils in 2017, but never signed with the team and spent last season in the KHL. Though his rights are technically retained indefinitely by the Devils, it appears as though the 22-year-old will no longer be pursuing his career on the ice.
Cole Caufield Listed As Day-To-Day
The Montreal Canadiens today announced that forward Cole Caufield is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. Caufield played in last night’s preseason game against the Toronto Maple Leafs but was pulled after warmups prior to today’s intrasquad scrimmage.
Head coach Dominique Ducharme confirmed today that Caufield’s injury isn’t serious, and his absence remains mainly precautionary. That’s good news for Canadiens fans, as Caufield still projects to slot in with Nick Suzuki on Montreal’s top line to begin the season.
Caufield netted a combined 17 points in 30 games between his regular season and playoff contests in 2020-21 and will improve on those totals this year, in all likelihood. He’ll undoubtedly see more than the 13:58 average ice time he saw last year.
Montreal has already struggled mightily with injuries to core pieces heading into training camp. Aside from captain Shea Weber being expected to miss the entire season, Carey Price and Mike Hoffman are both dealing with shorter-term injuries but could be out for the start of the season.
Caufield projects to be one of the favorites to take home the Calder Trophy this year along with a strong class of rookies. Last season, Caufield also scored 52 points in just 31 games while at the University of Wisconsin, along with five points in seven games for the United States at the World Junior Championships.
Poll: Are The Montreal Canadiens A Playoff Team In 2021-22?
After making it all the way to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, losing in five games to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Montreal Canadiens have had one of the most interesting offseasons of any team. That much roster turnover is unusual for a team that made it that far in the playoffs, but a decent portion of it has been out of their control.
A good portion of Montreal’s starting 12 forwards will look different next season. Gone down the middle are Phillip Danault, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Eric Staal. Dvorak will attempt to replace Danault’s shutdown role with a little more offensive touch but less defensive prowess. Kotkaniemi’s third-line role is likely to be replaced by another young center, most probably Jake Evans. Staal’s fourth-line role will likely be comprised of a more defensive-minded pivot in Cedric Paquette. Their group of wingers will look different too, losing out on Tomas Tatar‘s two-way play in favor of a power-play specialist in Mike Hoffman. Gone is veteran Corey Perry in the bottom six, being replaced by another veteran presence in Mathieu Perreault.
The team’s defense faces the loss of the team’s captain in Shea Weber. His injury will keep him out for at least this entire season and puts the rest of his career in jeopardy. His absence will be replaced by committee, as youngster Alexander Romanov and new addition David Savard should see more minutes. The left side stays relatively constant from last season, and overseas addition Chris Wideman could challenge for some games as well.
A tandem of Carey Price and Jake Allen returns after a successful regular season campaign.
However, a team that barely squeaked into the playoffs last season returns with some question marks. Full seasons of Jonathan Drouin and Cole Caufield help boost the team, but downgrades from Danault to Dvorak and Tatar to Hoffman raise near-negating doubts. The success of youngsters like Evans and Romanov will be crucial if Montreal wants to make a return to the playoffs in 2022, and they’ll need repeat performances from players such as Jeff Petry and Josh Anderson.
So the question to you, PHR readers, is this: has Montreal done enough this offseason to yield a playoff team in an increasingly competitive Eastern Conference? Make your voice heard below:
Do The Montreal Canadiens Make The Playoffs In 2022?
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Yes, just barely 43% (911)
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No, just miss 31% (666)
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Yes, 100+ point season 14% (293)
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No, bottom-tier team 13% (272)
Total votes: 2,142
Mobile users, click here to vote!
North Notes: Canadiens, Foligno, Pettersson, Brown
While Canadiens winger Tomas Tatar was expected to be a healthy scratch to make room for winger Cole Caufield’s playoff debut, that won’t be the case after all. Instead, the team announced (Twitter link) that center Eric Staal will be scratched due to an undisclosed injury. The veteran missed the final game of the regular season when it was revealed he had been playing through something but Staal did suit up in the first two playoff games, recording an assist. With Jake Evans remaining unavailable due to his upper-body injury, Montreal will only have three natural centers in the lineup against Toronto tonight.
Elsewhere in the North:
- While Maple Leafs forward Nick Foligno wasn’t at their morning skate today, he will play tonight relays Joshua Clipperton of the Canadian Press (Twitter link). Pressed into playing down the middle following John Tavares’ concussion and knee injury, he was seen walking gingerly after Saturday’s game two against Montreal. Riley Nash took his spot at the morning skate and would have been Foligno’s replacement had he not been available.
- Although he missed the final two months of the season with a lingering wrist injury, Canucks center Elias Pettersson won’t need to undergo surgery to repair the issue, notes Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston. While surgery was discussed at one point with team doctors, they decided that simply rehabbing it would be the better way to go. He enters restricted free agency this summer coming off a bit of a disappointing campaign that saw him miss 30 games although he still managed to pick up 10 goals and 11 assists in the 26 contests he was able to suit up for.
- Despite a disappointing and injury-marred season, the Senators will tender a qualifying offer to center Logan Brown, reports Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. The 11th-overall pick in 2016, Brown has just 26 career NHL games under his belt, only one of which came this season while injuries limited him to just 13 more with AHL Belleville. A change of scenery has been speculated as something that might be beneficial for Brown and with him unlikely to be protected in expansion, he could be an intriguing project for Seattle to take a look at.
Snapshots: Kampfer, Stars Goaltenders, Caufield
The Boston Bruins lost some of their defensive depth today when head coach Bruce Cassidy said that Steven Kampfer will miss the rest of the playoffs with an arm injury, according to NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin. No word on how he got hurt.
Kampfer has only appeared once in the last 13 games for Boston, including no playoff games. The one game he did play, back on May 11, he did get 24:05 of ice time. For the season, the 32-year-old appeared in 20 games, scoring two goals and five points, while blocking 24 shots.
The team will have to depend more on some of their remaining defensive depth, including Connor Clifton and Jarred Tinordi. With an injury to Kevan Miller, the team will turn to Tinordi to fill in.
- Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News writes the Dallas Stars will have a goalie logjam next season with the return of Ben Bishop. While there was some early speculation that the team believed that the Seattle Kraken might grab veteran Anton Khudobin in the expansion draft (Jake Oettinger is exempt and Bishop has a no-movement clause), the scribe believes that Khudobin’s disappointing season, his age (35 years) and two years on his contract at $3.33MM doesn’t make that much sense for an expansion team. While the expansion draft is one potential way to fix the issue, the team might be better off trying to trade Khudobin to team looking for a solid backup. With many goaltenders going for quality prices, the team could pick up a solid draft pick if they decided to go that way.
- The Montreal Canadiens got the split they needed in Toronto and now have home-ice advantage for the time being. However, The Athletic’s Arpon Basu (subscription required) believes the team needs youngster Cole Caufield to step into Game 3. The scribe notes that Montreal spent much of the second period of Game 2 short-handed mainly because Toronto controlled the puck almost entirely. To fix that problem, the team must add speed, something that Caufield and defenseman Alexander Romanov could provide the team. When asked, coach Dominique Ducharme shrugged. “Possible, like everyone available,” he said. “We have depth, and we’re going to use it.”
Montreal Canadiens Recall Cole Caufield
April 26: It took another ten days, but the Canadiens are finally giving Caufield a shot. The team has assigned Alexander Romanov to the taxi squad in order to give them the cap space needed to recall the young sniper, who will make his NHL debut tonight against the Calgary Flames. Because several other forwards are currently dealing with injuries, Caufield is technically an emergency recall according to CapFriendly, meaning they can bring Romanov back down the line.
April 16: It’s happening, Montreal Canadiens fans. The team has officially recalled Cole Caufield from the AHL and placed him on the taxi squad. Montreal plays tomorrow evening against the Calgary Flames, where the Hobey Baker Award winner could potentially make his NHL debut. The team also recalled Cayden Primeau to the active roster under emergency conditions.
Of note, the Laval Rocket recently had several upcoming games postponed, meaning Caufield could just be up with the taxi squad to get some practice time in. After his early performance in the AHL however–the 20-year-old forward scored three goals (including two game-winners) and four points in two appearances for Laval–Canadiens fans are hoping he’s in the NHL lineup before long.
There’s been no stopping Caufield so far in his hockey career. Despite never reaching the size and strength of some other top prospects, the 5’7″ forward continues to outproduce almost everyone he comes in contact with. Caufield broke records set by people like Phil Kessel and Auston Matthews with the U.S. National Team Development Program, he was a point-per-game freshman in the NCAA and just recently led the entire nation in scoring with 30 goals and 52 points in 31 games for Wisconsin.
It seemed as though professional hockey may slow him down, but that certainly wasn’t the case in his debut for Laval. Caufield recorded five shots on goal, scored on the powerplay and at even strength, and added a helper in his professional debut, flying all over the ice with the puck. He came back with another four-shot performance on the next night, once again providing must-see action for the Rocket.
Now the next step is getting his first game with the Canadiens, who are coming off a 4-1 loss to the Flames on Wednesday. The team has scored just five goals in their last three games and could certainly use a bit of punch from their star prospect.
North Notes: Chiarot, Hyman, Ritchie
The Montreal Canadiens are expecting to have Ben Chiarot back in the lineup tonight, just four weeks after breaking his hand in a fight. Chiarot is returning nearly two weeks ahead of schedule, a nice boost for a Montreal team that is still perched precariously in the final North Division playoff spot. As head coach Dominique Ducharme noted to reporters including TSN’s John Lu today, however, Chiarot’s return from long-term injured reserve complicates the Canadiens cap situation and could delay the debut of top prospect Cole Caufield who was recalled to the taxi squad today–or even many of the team’s other reserves.
Of course, as Eric Engels of Sportsnet tweets, this could change quickly and certainly won’t keep the active roster static for the rest of the season. Though Ducharme’s comments may have been concerning to Montreal fans, the important news today is Chiarot’s return to his familiar spot next to Shea Weber with just 16 games left in the season.
- Toronto Maple Leafs forward Zach Hyman will sacrifice $5,000 for his high-stick on Winnipeg Jets defenseman Neal Pionk, but won’t face any suspension for the incident. Near the end of last night’s game, Hyman was involved in a net-front battle and after receiving a slash from Pionk, turned and struck Pionk in the face with the blade of his stick. The Maple Leafs forward was given a penalty on the play and now faces the maximum allowable fine under the CBA.
- Before joining the Vegas Golden Knights, first as assistant GM and then as GM, Kelly McCrimmon ran the entire Brandon Wheat Kings organization for decades. The owner of the WHL franchise, McCrimmon acted as GM and quite often head coach as well through 2015-16. One of the important members of that front office, in fact the man who took over as GM in 2019, is also now heading to the NHL. Darren Ritchie, who has been with the Wheat Kings since 2006 in various roles, most recently general manager, has left the junior club to take an amateur scouting position with the Maple Leafs. The Wheat Kings have named AGM Doug Gasper as his replacement.