Cole Caufield Named NHL Rookie of the Month

On Friday, the NHL announced that Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield was named rookie of the month for March. With this honour, Caufield becomes the first Canadiens rookie to have this honor since Carey Price was named rookie of the month in March of 2008.

Cole Caufield (@CanadiensMTL), who led all rookies in goals, points, power-play goals (tied), power-play assists and power-play points, has been named the NHL’s “Rookie of the Month” for March.#NHLStats: https://t.co/tnoxM2hOvs pic.twitter.com/jNy4YSl75Y
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 1, 2022

In 15 games, Caufield scored seven goals and eight assists for 15 points which led all rookies in that category. The rookie with the second most points on the month was teammate Rem Pitlick who scored three goals and 11 points in as many games. Caufield also led the way in powerplay points with three goals and five assists. On top of that, Caufield registered the most points by a Canadiens rookie since Michael Ryder put up seven goals and 16 points in 14 games during January 2004.

Since Martin St. Louis has become the Montreal Canadiens head coach, Caufield has turned his entire season around. Under previous head coach Dominique Ducharme, the 21-year old had only one goal and seven assists for eight points in 29 games. The change was incredible afterwards as with St. Louis, he has 13 goals and 12 assists for 25 points in 25 games. A point per game pace over 25 games isn't something to take lightly especially for a rookie who started his season seriously struggling.

Caufield leads all Canadiens in points since St. Louis took over but only by a narrow margin as 22-year old centre Nick Suzuki also has put up nine goals and 23 points in 25 games. He also led the Canadiens in points during March with seven goals and 10 assists for 17 points in 15 games. Essentially St. Louis has rejuvenated his young stars game since arriving and deserves a ton of credit for the resurgence.

Another player that has really benefitted from playing under the coach is Rem Pitlick who has provided a nice scoring spark as of late. He along with Caufield and Suzuki have made watching the Canadiens fun again.

In practice on Friday, the three young players practiced on a line together and the trio are expected to play Saturday night in Tampa Bay together. It will be interesting to see how that line works as the Canadiens are looking for a third player to complete the Suzuki-Caufield duo.

Based on practice in Brandon looks line Dauphin might be coming out for Poehling tomorrow night. Forward lines looked something like this:

R. Pitlick-Suzuki-Caufield
Hoffman-Evans-Anderson
Byron-Dvorak-Armia
Ylönen-Poehling-T. Pitlick
— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) April 1, 2022