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Canadiens Postgame

Canadiens Sniper Caufield Finishing Season On Right Foot

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2 weeks ago

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Montreal Canadiens Cole Caufield

The Montreal Canadiens were in Ottawa on Saturday night to face the perpetually struggling Senators. It was a battle of two teams who did not have much left to play for, except perhaps pride.

Oh, and though they’ll never admit it, there was a perk involved for the losing team, as they’d go a long way in improving their Draft Lottery odds.

The Canadiens coughed up four different one-goal leads on their way to a 5-4 shootout loss.

Let’s dive into those highlights!

Magic Mike

There’s no doubt Mike Matheson’s game involves highs and lows. For every three great plays, he tends to have a rather difficult shift. But there’s also something to be said about the fact that he’s the first defenceman since P.K. Subban to hit 60 points in a Montreal Canadiens jersey.

Not to mention he counts for less than $5 million on the salary cap, making him one of the best value defencemen in the NHL from a production standpoint. If fans are expecting a perfect player, they should look to the names ahead of Matheson in the defenceman scoring race and cross reference their salary cap hits.

It may not matter to some, but Matheson is also one of the most entertaining players in the organization, as evidenced by his many highlight plays this season, including his shorthanded breakaway goal that opened the scoring on Saturday night.

Brady Tkachuk tied the game a few moments, the first of two occasions in which he wiped out a Canadiens lead. That gave Habs forward Cole Caufield an opportunity to steal the spotlight, and that’s exactly what he did, starting with an unorthodox goal to restore the team’s one-goal lead.

Caufield would go on to score his 27th goal of the season, a clean shot on the powerplay that gave Senators goaltender Joonas Korpisalo no chance to make the save.

While we’ve become accustomed to Caufield scoring in those situations, it should be noted he has moved away from his somewhat predictable preferred shooting area. Full marks to Caufield for changing things up in an attempt to find his goal-scoring rhythm. On that note, his second goal against Ottawa was an encouraging sign that the sniper has regained much of the confidence he lost during his difficult season.

We also need to discuss the concept that Caufield had a difficult season. Obviously, his shooting luck has been terrible, but he’s going to get close to 30 goals while also establishing a career-high in assists. In addition, he cruised past the 60-point mark.

As terrible seasons go, this one was pretty good.

 

Deciding Play

They don’t ask how, they only ask how many.

Okay, to be truthful, they often ask how, but that doesn’t fit our theme at the moment.

Alex Newhook scored late in the third period when his pass hit a Senators’ defenceman before finding its way to the back of the net.

It was Newhook’s 13th goal of the year, which is reasonable production seeing as he joined a new team and also missed a significant portion of the season with a foot injury.

 

The Montreal Canadiens are back in action on Monday. They will face the Detroit Red Wings with the puck drop scheduled for 7 pm ET. All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick.

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Sean

lol, how’s the article from a week ago where you stated that Cole wouldn’t hit a career high this year….with 7 games left. Nice one

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Subber

Ha, you got him, you’re so smart, yes you are!!!

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Dana

Finishes on the right foot? Pretty sure one of the two last night he finished off the left foot😜

Cole is a premier goal scoring threat in the NHL. With the puck on his stick in the O zone, he dangles for angle(trademark pending, kidding) , darts into gaps in coverage, and has scoring on his mind- that’s who he is and what he does. Someone made the point in an earlier article that by passing more, he becomes less predictable which will help long term. I know the shooting percentage is down but I’m not concerned as by the eye test, he has one of the best goal scoring toolkits in the league

I did an interesting piece of math, makes a fun riddle. In 203 nhl games he has 80 goals which translates to 32 goals per 82 games, yet he just set his career high of 27….

Matheson is as you say- fun to watch, a strong offensive contributor and an elite skater. I have viewed Hutson as the heir apparent, the guy that will drive offense from the back end as we move into Cup contention in a few years but why can’t we keep both? Guhle Reinbacher and Xhekaj tend to play a more defensive style ( although I expect all 3 will make significant offensive contributions)so can it work? I look forward to Mailloux on the team as well and expect he becomes an important member too.

That leaves a glut of NHL caliber players to deal with. We will lose some guys for little return. Gustav Lindstrom is the guy we got for petry from Detroit, a 25 year old former second round pick. He’s now playing every game in Anaheim and we got nothing for him.

A point to ponder- Hughes didn’t want to lose Primeau for nothing so he created an uncomfortable situation in the crease to not lose the potential third or fourth round pick Primeau might bring us in a trade but yet didn’t hold the same value for a 6’2” right shot defenseman with over 150 games experience that tend to have higher market value than back up goalies with almost no nhl experience? I’m sure there is a logical explanation but I’m unaware if it at this point.

Marc, do you know?

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Bev Seney

Lindstrom could not make the Detroit team we had multiple D.en so someone had to be given up. Primeau is much more valuable to the team than Lindstrom. He maybe playing full time for one of the weakest teams in the league. Not tradable.

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Dana

Incorrect, you said Lindstrom couldn’t make the Detroit team when Lindstrom played 100 games for Detroit his last 2 seasons- that’s called making the team. He played another 50+ games this year between us and anaheim. He’s an NHL player with almost 200 career games at 25. Not claiming he’s a star, he’s not. He’s a depth guy but he was an early second round selection that’s carved a place on 3 nhl rosters.

Primeau played for us a total of 21 games over 4 years going into this season How much are guys that play 5 games a year worth in your opinion? More or less than a right shot D that plays an average of 10 times that many games? Was Primeau tradable at the start of this year? Hughes was afraid of losing him for nothing on waivers but not Lindstrom, why? If he held and played Lindstrom until the trade deadline, I suggest he could have likely gotten a mid rpund pick for him, same or more as he could get for Primeau. Teams woukd have taken Primeau for free, sure but would they have paid for him early this year? I’d say no. Goalies get the lowest return in trades. Goalies in their mid 20’s that haven’t made a positive impression after 4 years of auditions have low to no market value. Do you agree or dshould shared?

Teams look for depth in defence heading into the playoffs with more demand in RD than left. So I disagree he’s untradeable but he would not bring much in return. How much different is he than Strubble, a mid second round playing less than 60 games a year. Or Barron, a first rounder that hasn’t played a 50 game seadon. Could you get anything for either of those guys? The original mystery to me is why protect Primeau and treat Lindstrom the opposite? We had 2 nhl goalies so no urgency to promote or protect Primeau especially after Sam signed his extension. It’s a minor thing in the big picture, I’m trying to figure out the thought processes Hughes uses in decion making.

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Ghg55

Because you’re only looking at part of the picture. You’re acting as if trade value is all that matters, and like value is static. Lindstrom is what he is. Primeau still has a bunch of potential for growth. He was stuck behind Price and Allen, and then Allen and Monty and never got a consistent shot. If there’s one thing this season should’ve taught you it’s the importance of getting into multiple games to get into a groove. Primeau never had that opportunity… until now. And look what he’s doing with hit. He has a much higher “help the team” ceiling than Lindstrom did, especially considering the lack of goalies we had in the system at the beginning of the yr vs number of D men. Savard, kovy, mailloux, rein, Barron, Lindstrom all for basically 3 slots. Plus tons of other D that can just play their off side. At the start of the yr they hadn’t seen Fowler in the NCAA, Dobes was bad, volo etc again not proven at higher levels, all while clear Allen wouldn’t be sticking around.
Mgmt was clearly looking forward, as they should. They saw that primeau could contribute much more to our future than Lindstrom. And they’re already right

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Greg

I’ve been very happy with Newhook’s play since returning from injury. Prior to that, he had trouble, but he’s looking like he could be quite good down the road, when the team is better. Caufield has gotten some grief over not upping his goal total much, but he has stayed healthy, and his overall game is much better. Now, he will take a hit to make a play, he goes more to the dirty areas, and hasn’t been annihilated doing so. His passing too is much improved. Hopefully next year, with a healthy Dach, we will have more than just one line for teams to worry about. Let’s face it, Dvorak and Evans don’t strike worry into any team’s heart when he’s coming in with the puck. They had to some with Newhook lately, and it was a perfect time to step up with Monahan gone.

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