Analyst Patrick Lalime noted a singular state of affairs during Saturday night’s game on TVA Sports.
And he made us realize even more the power of attraction of Cole Caufield on the crowd. Yes, we can hear the murmurs running through the crowd when the young man touches the puck. And the phenomenon hasn’t happened often in Montreal since the heyday of Guy Lafleur, as Lalime pointed out.
Looking at the NHL scoring charts this morning, we find Nick Suzuki at 11e rank, two points behind top dix, with 23 points in 18 games, en route to a 105-point full-season season.
Caufield is sixth in league scoring with 11 goals in 18 games, one goal behind third. He has now scored 33 goals in 56 games since the arrival of Martin St-Louis. He had five in his first 39 career games…
Moreover, among all the players drafted in 2017, Suzuki, 13e overall, is second only to Jason Robertson in scoring since the start of the season.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Nick Suzuki
In terms of the 2019 vintage, Caufield, 15e overall, is first, with 19 points, tied with first overall pick Jack Hughes, and Kirby Dach, 3e in total, acquired for Alexander Romanov, ranks third with 16 points, tied with Trevor Zegras.
At this rate, Caufield will reach the mark of 50 goals in a full season. Stéphane Richer is the last Canadian player to have achieved the feat, in 1990, more than 30 years ago! Mats Naslund was the last Canadian to score 100 points… in 1986!
The CH was able to count on four players with more than 80 points, Vincent Damphousse (97), Kirk Muller (94), Brian Bellows (88) and Stéphan Lebeau (80) 30 years ago. It was said that they did not have a big club, but with these attacking guns, and Patrick Roy, they lifted the Cup for the last time, in 1993.
We’ll see if the trend continues, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen such an exciting team on offense. The retirement of Carey Price is a particular coincidence, at a time when young offensive players emerge and break this reign of domination of goaltenders at the Canadian, from Patrick to Carey Price, passing by José Théodore.
If only the offensive production was better distributed, the Canadian would not occupy the 19e rank only in terms of goals scored per game. After Suzuki, Caufield and Dach, the top scorer, Sean Monahan, had 10 points in 18 games.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Kirby Dash
Despite everything, Montreal has a better average of goals scored per game than Toronto and its guns Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander.
Damphousse, Muller, Bellows and Lebeau were all between the ages of 25 and 29 when they had their big offensive year. Suzuki is 23, Caufield and Dach will be 22 in January and Slafkovsky, the next, is still 18.
We don’t know if the Canadian will be able to continue winning as often, but the show is on the agenda at the Bell Centre, especially for a club in the midst of a rejuvenation phase.
The Blues are back!
After flirting with the cellar of the classification, and suffering a threat of reconstruction from their DG, the Blues players won a sixth consecutive victory on Saturday. They now occupy the last place giving access to the playoffs, on a par with the Calgary Flames. They had however suffered eight defeats in a row before, a team record.
The performances of goalkeeper Jordan Binnington are no stranger to the resurrection of the Blues. He was posting a 4.57 GAA and .853 save percentage during that disappointing streak. He has allowed 11 goals in his last five games, only six of which are tied on the scoreboard.
Former goalkeeper-turned-analyst Darren Pang breaks down his game in this insightful article from The Athletic.