What might it take for Cole Caufield to become Montreal’s all-time goal leader?
For the first time in 35 years, the Montreal Canadiens had a 50-goal scorer with Cole Caufield scoring 51 and tying Stephane Richer, who reached that total during the 1989-90 season.
Caufield now has a chance to do something that hasn’t been done by a Canadiens player in nearly 50 seasons with back-to-back 50-goal seasons. That was done by Guy Lafleur, who actually had six straight seasons with 50 or more goals during the 1970s.
It is still early in Caufield’s career, but he already has 169 career goals and ranks 32nd all-time in Montreal Canadiens history. However, another 50-goal season would move him all the way up to 23rd and just past Elmer Lach.
How long would it take for Cole Caufield to catch Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard?
While Guy Lafleur had that incredible stretch in the 1970s, it wasn’t enough to pass Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard, who is the franchise leader in goals with 544. If Caufield hopes to one day be the franchise leader in goals, he would need a similar run to the one Lafleur went on.
If Caufield is able to average 50 goals per season, then it would require 7.5 seasons for him to surpass Richard, but if he only manages an average of 40 goals per season, that number jumps to just under 9.5 seasons. The fact that he is only 25 years old certainly helps his chances, but he is going to need to deliver elite-level performance to get into that discussion.
The biggest question for Caufield is whether or not he can keep his shooting percentage at where it was last season, when it was 19.8%. Over the past three seasons, it has made huge jumps from 8.9% in 2023-24 to 15.5% in 2024-25 and then almost another five-point jump last season.
With five more years left on his current contract, and expecting to play alongside Nick Suzuki throughout the majority of that, it is far from a guarantee, but also something that could become a possibility with a few more seasons of 50 or more goals.
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