Why Cole Caufield Will Score 40+ Goals Next season

He has a good one-timer, but his shot is even better when his feet are moving, as he is especially a good scorer on the rush. 

While, Caufield’s career shooting percentage is 12.7%, it goes up significantly by taking out the 2023-24 season, where he had a career-low 8.9% due to recovering from shoulder surgery midway through the 2022-23 season. Without that outlier in Caufield’s career, his shooting percentage goes up to 14.6% throughout the other 3 full seasons he had in the NHL. 

Last season, Caufield took fewer shots per game despite scoring his career-high in goals. During the 2024-25 season, Caufield took almost a shot less per game (2.93 shots per game) than he did in 2023-24 (3.83 shots per game). If Caufield adds about 50 shots to his total from last year, and also shoots around the 14.6% that he has with a shoulder at full strength, it gives him approximately 42 goals over a full 82-game season. 

Caufield may take fewer shots than he used to as he’s become a more complete player who can now be an underrated playmaker, but at the same time, if the Canadiens have the puck more as a whole should help Caufield get more shots off either way. 

With the way, Caufield’s linemate Juraj Slafkovsky, who is a playmaking power forward, is expected to also take another step this upcoming season, it should also add more chances for Caufield and Nick Suzuki. The three players seem to complement each other so well, and when one of them improves, it seems like they all improve like a well-oiled machine. If this line can manage to stay healthy all season, the three players can easily combine for a total of 90-100 goals, where Caufield should be the one who finishes the most chances. 

Another reason why Caufield should finally score 40 goals is that he’s slowly becoming smarter with his shot selection and understands where he needs to go to get the best chance out of his great wrister.

Even if Caufield may lose the main sniper role on the Habs’ 1st power-play unit, he is still guaranteed to get his chances on the power-play. This should add another 6-7 goals to his total at the very least. Truthfully, the Canadiens likely will swap Caufield and Laine on the 1st power-play unit based on who the hottest scorer is at the time. It could create friendly competition between the two snipers that could be good for them to push each other to be better.

With that being said, the competition may help Caufield want to shoot more so that he can earn that power-play time. Whether or not, he finally scores 40 goals, Caufield is in for another big season.

How many goals do you see Caufield scoring next season?