Habs star Cole Caufield makes top 10 in NHL Network’s winger rankings
Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield took his game to the next level last year, and now he’s getting some richly deserved recognition.
To wit, the 25-year-old came ninth in the NHL Network’s ranking of wingers, which was released on Sunday.
Caufield scored a team-leading 51 goals during the 2025-26 regular season, becoming the first Canadien since Stéphane Richer in 1989-90 to top the 50-goal mark. He also registered 37 assists for a career-best 88-point season.
In the playoffs, he had six goals and seven assists as the Canadiens made it to the Eastern Conference finals.
Caufield, who was selected by the Canadiens with the 15th pick in the 2019 NHL draft, was also awarded the Lady Byng Trophy. Despite averaging 18:11 of ice time across 81 games, he had only 14 penalty minutes as he became the first Hab since Mats Naslund in 1988 to win the award “for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of play.”
Top spot on the NHL Network’s list went to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov, who registered 130 points in an MVP-winning season before being dumped out of the playoffs by the Canadiens in the first round.
One could argue that Caufield’s ranking undersells his achievements: Among wingers, he was first in goals scored, sixth in points and seventh in points per game last season.
Canadiens sign Szuber
In other Habs news, the team announced on Monday that it had signed Maksymilian Szuber to a one-year, two-way contract.
Montreal acquired the 23-year-old defenceman in the trade that sent Joshua Roy to the Utah Mammoth earlier this summer.
A sixth-round pick by the Arizona Coyotes in 2022, Szuber had 27 points in 65 games with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners last season. His only NHL game to date was for the Arizona Coyotes against the Seattle Kraken on April 9, 2024.
