A big revelation from Ducharme could explain Caufield's lack of success under his command

Since the arrival of Martin St-Louis as head coach of the Habs, Cole Caufield has literally become the maverick the team's fans wanted.

In 37 games last year, number 22 scored 22 goals under his new coach and has nine goals in 15 games so far this season. That gives Caufield a total of 31 goals in 52 games, which means that on a full-season basis, Caufield would be very close to the 50 mark, something that hasn't happened in Montreal since the 1989-1990 season with a certain Stephane Richer.

But if you go back to this time last year, Caufield was having all the trouble in the world finding the back of the net, which made some Canadiens fans say he wasn't ready for the NHL yet.

We also remember that Dominique Ducharme was the head coach of the Glorious and the little American forward had only scored one goal before Ducharme was fired last February.


But what could have happened to bring about such a drastic change in Cole Caufield's production? It seems that the former Habs coach gave a logical explanation to Louis Jean of TVA Sports.

As Marc-Olivier Cook of Danslescoulisses.com reports, the reporter spoke with Ducharme on the Temps d'arrêt podcast, and Ducharme said that Caufield hurt his shoulder in the infamous red vs. white intrasquad game at the start of camp, and that's possibly what slowed him down last year.

A major revelation that could explain a lot. So was Caufield playing injured last year under Dominique Ducharme?

We must not forget that he played a lot of hockey before the 2021-2022 season with the Canadiens' run to the finals and also his season at the university level, during which he received the Hobey-Baker Trophy.

This explains a lot, but today, Ducharme is not surprised to see him scoring a ton of goals and he knew it was going to happen sooner or later.


To listen to the full interview between Louis Jean and Dominique Ducharme, click below.