‘I’m not shooting enough on goal,’ says NHL leading scorer Cole Caufield

It’s been a long time since a Canadian forward was at the top of the NHL scoring rankings. In this gloomy start to the season in Montreal, despite the last victory in Buffalo, there is one positive point. Cole Caufield who sits at the top of the NHL’s top scorers with his 12 goals.

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The CH small forward is accompanied by prolific German Leon Draisaitl, of the Edmonton Oilers, and Sam Reinhart, of the Florida Panthers.

Caufield, however, was not too excited in the locker room after training at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard, just before flying to Minnesota, where the Canadian will face the Wild on Thursday evening.

“It’s only November,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“It’s a good position to be in there,” he continued. But to be honest, I don’t shoot enough.”

“Luck is one thing. I can’t complain about my performance. But I have to find more opportunities to score goals,” said the man who has an efficiency of 29.3% to shake the strings, which gives him the 20^e league level.

Au 85^e rang

Caufield is not wrong. According to NHL data, his 41 shots on opposing net place him at 68^e rank of the circuit. And his average of 2.56 shots per match puts him back at 85^e rank. Draisaitl and Reinhart also accompany him in these lowlands.

In this regard, David Pastrnak, Auston Matthews and Brady Tkachuk are particularly effective in being threatening.

According to captain Nick Suzuki, there is no doubt in his mind that his teammate will not slow down, even if they have been separated by coach Martin St-Louis since the last match.

“He is still dangerous in certain areas of the offensive territory. He does a great job putting the puck in the net. We see that he enjoys doing it and he sets a good example,” said the man who also broke the deadlock with a four-point performance in Buffalo after a four-game drought.

More complete

The Canadiens head coach also sees Caufield as a more complete player than last year.

“His game without the puck is much better. It will continue to evolve. We talk about it a lot, he said. He went through this training last year by challenging his production.

“I always said that Cole Caufield was going to continue to score goals,” continued St-Louis. It’s not something I’m going to teach him, but I’m teaching him to play a more complete style.”

On the eve of the match against the second power of the NHL, St-Louis did not touch its formation. Caufield and Suzuki skated separately. The first was flanked by Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach. The other was on the wing of Jake Evans and Alex Newhook.

Furthermore, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard wore a regular jersey in training for the first time this season. The energetic striker is recovering from leg surgery. St-Louis, however, has closed the door to a return, in the short term.