If there is one player who steps up in Patrik Laine’s absence, it’s Cole Caufield.

Caufield, who scored three goals in 13 games while Laine was in uniform, has just scored three in his last three games – the three games of 2025 in which Laine was absent.

And the Canadiens needed that.

One might not want to draw a connection between Laine’s presence and Caufield’s performance, but it remains that in 40 games this season, he has 22 goals. And…

While he has three goals in 13 games with Laine, one can also say he has 19 goals in 27 games without the Finnish player. That’s an impressive pace.

So yes, Caufield will have to learn to score with Laine in uniform. But for now, it is undeniable that if he maintains his pace from the first half of the season, he is on track to score nearly 45 goals this season.

No one on the Canadiens has done better than Max Pacioretty’s 39 since the salary cap was introduced in the National Hockey League.

But not everything is perfect for Caufield. Yesterday, for example, he took a really unnecessary penalty in the third period which led to the Canucks’ fourth goal.

Martin St-Louis did not seem like a satisfied customer when Caufield returned to the bench.

However, even though the penalty came from an unnecessary play, Martin St-Louis still refused to punish his player more than necessary by keeping him on the bench at the very end of the game.

It would have been an issue had the Canadiens lost… but now, it’s more acceptable.

Caufield took his penalty because he cares about the team, and St-Louis deemed that it doesn’t happen often to his player. And since the team needed to score at the end of the game and Caufield had been asked to be more involved in general, MSL let it slide.

And in light of what we see, it was the right thing to do.

We can agree that player management is case by case. But on this, it would have been illogical for St-Louis to shoot himself in the foot since it wasn’t due to a lack of effort that Caufield, who regrets his action, was penalized by the referees.

Nonetheless, it is not an action that helps his candidacy for the Four Nations… even if he is performing well as a top player.

In Brief

– Interesting.

– Noteworthy.

– The impact of the draft.

– Good question.

– Worth reading.