The Montreal Canadiens have rostered their fair share of star players.
There are reasons why they’ve won more Stanley Cups than any other franchise.
But one of their young stars just did something that no one in Canadiens history has ever accomplished before.
Heck, no other NHLer has even come close to the record set by Cole Caufield on Thursday night.
Canadiens’ Caufield Best NHL Record Previously Set by McDavid
Montreal needed a bounce-back win on Thursday night, especially after blowing a four-goal lead with less than three minutes left against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.
It was an uphill battle all night long against a similarly young, talented Utah Mammoth team. But Montreal erased three separate deficits to force overtime.
And when Montreal gets to overtime, who else should they expect to score but Cole Caufield?
That’s his 15th career @Energizer OT winner!!
Caufield’s overtime marker was already the 15th of his young NHL career. That broke the record previously set by McDavid for being the fastest player in NHL history to reach that mark.
And honestly, it wasn’t particularly close.
Caufield scored his 15th NHL overtime marker in just his 384th career game. It took McDavid 554 games to reach the same mark.
Current NHLers Sebastian Aho (645 games) and Alex Ovechkin (653 games) are the next fastest players to score 15 career NHL overtime goals.
What Canadiens Said After Comeback Win
It was an utter shock to see the Canadiens blow a four-goal lead in the dying minutes of Tuesday’s game. That was something the NHL had literally never seen before.
With that in mind, head coach Martin St. Louis was a big fan of Thursday’s effort.
“Maybe getting smacked in the teeth was what we needed,” St. Louis said following the 5-4 overtime win.
The Canadiens bench boss criticized his own team on Tuesday, essentially saying they were lucky they only lost in overtime, despite having a 4-0 lead. They were heavily outshot and outchanced, with Jacob Fowler standing on his head.
But, in sports, it’s often about how you respond. And St. Louis was a fan of the response Thursday.
“I loved the players’ response to that game. I loved the players’ response in this game,” he said.
“It was an excellent hockey game. That was two good teams. But I loved the way we played tonight a lot and we had a lot of tough breaks. Broken sticks, we had to kill penalties against one of the best power plays.”
“We carried on; we played a good game. It’s fun to see that after the disappointment of the last game. And you know sometimes things happen for a reason. I don’t know if we would have played as good a game tonight if not for that disappointment Tuesday.”
And, as for Caufield, he just can’t help but score.
“He can score everywhere,” Habs goalie Jakub Dobes said postgame. “Video games, on the ice, in practice, probably somewhere else, too. He’s just a goal scorer. He’s unbelievable.”
Caufield now has 11 goals in 16 games this season. He currently leads the entire 2019 NHL Draft class with 179 goals in 384 games. Only three other players from that draft class have scored more than 100 goals (Jack Hughes: 176, Matt Boldy: 151, and Dylan Cozens: 114).
Canadiens’ Caufield is Doing Something the NHL has Never Seen Before