NEWARK, N.J. — It was so subtle you probably didn’t even notice it, but it was the secret sauce to what would have to be considered one of the most delicious plays of Cole Caufield’s young NHL career.
Of course, we can’t blame you for getting caught up in what the 23-year-old did with the puck to set Juraj Slafkvosky up with the opening goal of Montreal’s 3-2 win over the Devils at Prudential Center Wednesday. Watching him turn the pallet of his stick over to peel it off the glass, knock it out of the air and into the slot all in one motion was a glaring example of the type of play only players with his sublime skills can execute.
“I didn’t even see it, and then I looked at it on the bench and realized it was a pretty nice pass,” said Slafkovsky. “I looked up and the puck was on my stick, so that’s nice.”
Just tasty.
But Caufield never serves this one up to Slafkovsky without first making an excellent read off the puck.
He sees that Nick Suzuki is forcing Devils goaltender Nico Daws to play the puck behind his own net and over to Dawson Mercer, who’s standing a little further away than he should be, and then he pounces and disrupts the play, knocking the puck into the boards and up the glass — the self-pitch to the batting pass that will surely be featured in his career-highlight reel until he eventually hangs up his skates.
No one will remember what he did before the puck ended up on his stick, but it’s one of many subtle things Caufield did in this game that symbolized how the work he’s been doing to become a more complete player is starting to pay off.
With 11 minutes left in the second period, Caufield stormed off the bench into the offensive zone, disrupted Mercer and extended a threatening Canadiens shift by 20 seconds. With 10:50 left in the third, he flew back into his own zone and tracked all the way back to the goal line to separate the Devils forward from the puck for the only hit he was credited with in the game.
And then there was the play Caufield made before tapping in the winning goal from the blue paint with 4:31 remaining in the third period.
He knifed his way through coverage and found a way to punctuate a great night not only with the puck but mostly without it.
“It’s huge. It’s huge,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “He’s getting involved physically. He’s not just waiting for the puck to come to him; he’s going to the game. He’s not just on the perimeter, and tonight was a great example of that. Just leading up to the third goal, he finishes his route, makes contact, nothing crazy, then he works off the puck. He goes on the other side of the net, gets lost. He likes that spot, but he’s not open, so he jumps back in inside of his check and now he’s got body position on a loose puck, and he puts it in an empty net.
“You’ve gotta work hard off the puck, and that’s what we’re talking about with Cole. And he’s doing that.”
This has been the focus of this season for the young Wisconsinite — to sacrifice some of the goals he had produced through the first 122 games of his NHL career in pursuit of becoming a player who can be trusted to do more than just score. And now that he’s putting it together more frequently, the puck is starting to go in again at the pace he — and everyone else who’s watched him since well before he was drafted 15th overall in 2019 — expects.
The past nine games have seen Caufield produce six goals and nine points for one of his most productive runs of the season. The game-winner on Wednesday was his 14th goal of the season, and the tantalizing assist was his 19th.
But even if those plays hadn’t resulted in points, St. Louis said it wouldn’t have detracted from what would’ve still made this a strong game for No. 22, and he was right.
“It’s hard to not think about those actions on the ice, but I think we’re a very honest group in how we assess how guys are playing and how our team is playing regardless of the result,” the coach said. “And we do it collectively, and individually, so I would’ve been happy with Cole’s game.”
St. Louis was rightfully happy for Joshua Roy, too, after watching the 20-year-old score Montreal’s second goal for his first in the NHL to cap what he called, “his best game so far” of the three the kid has played at this level.
The coach liked Sam Montembeault’s 28-save performance; the work Roy’s linemates, Sean Monahan and Joel Armia, did; the resilience the Canadiens showed to rebound from two quick power-play goals the Devils scored at the beginning of the third period; and, of course, that great play from Caufield to Slafkovsky.
Caufield downplayed it, saying it was the product of all those hours “just messing around” after practice, but that was just the end of it.
The beginning — and the way he got to where he was supposed to be on the winning goal — represents one of many big steps he must take on his journey towards becoming one of the game’s best players.
It’s been coming.
“It’s scanning and reading, and it comes with experience, and watching video,” Caufield told us in the first week of January, right as it was starting to appear more and more like the parts of the game he’s been working on were coming along.
“Marty’s helped me a lot with it,” he said. “He doesn’t know where he wants me to be, but he wants me to be in between people. It’s about controlling your speed, knowing where guys are and timing. It makes the game so much easier when you play in between coverage because then you’re always open.”
St. Louis could see then it was starting to become more instinctual for Caufield.
“Playing between coverage, it’s an art, and five-on-five, I see him doing that more,” he said. “And you see Cole more on the inside. Not necessarily being on the inside and staying on the inside, but the motion he has, there’s some inside motion now. And he ends up going on the outside after, but you have to get to the inside at some point.
“Sometimes it’s early, sometimes it’s on time, but I think he’s starting to understand that. Five-on-five, playing in between coverage, it’s an art. It’s a lot easier to play in between coverage on the power play. And as a young player, he’s just learning to do that. When you learn that, you do that consistently, you’re harder to play against…”
That’s what Caufield was against the Devils.
It put him in position to make a play we won’t soon forget, and to make the deciding one in a big win for his team.
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