{"id":549121,"date":"2026-04-10T00:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549121\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T00:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:42:24","slug":"cole-caufield-scores-50th-goal-of-the-season-first-canadien-since-richer-to-achieve-feat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549121\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole Caufield scores 50th goal of the season, first Canadien since Richer to achieve feat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal Canadiens<\/a> forward Cole Caufield<\/a> scored his 50th goal of the season on Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>, becoming the franchise\u2019s first 50-goal scorer since Stephane Richer<\/a> in the 1989-90 season.<\/p>\n

Seven minutes into the second period, Caufield took a pass from captain Nick Suzuki<\/a> and wired the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> for his first 50-goal campaign. <\/p>\n

The sniper tallied 29 goals in his past 31 games to reach the milestone, becoming the seventh different player in Canadiens history to score reach the 50-goal mark. Maurice Richard<\/a> (1944-45), Guy LaFleur (six consecutive seasons from 1974-75 to 1979-80), Bernie Geoffrion<\/a> (1960-61), Steve Shutt (1976-77), Pierre Larouche<\/a> (1979-80) and Richer (1987-88, 1989-90) have also accomplished the feat.<\/p>\n

Caufield, 25, has posted a career-best season, entering Thursday\u2019s contest with 49 goals and 37 assists for 86 points in 77 games.<\/p>\n

He is now one goal behind Colorado Avalanche<\/a> star Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> (51) for the league lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re focused on our team game and winning games and I think individual stuff comes with that,\u201d Caufield said Thursday when asked if catching MacKinnon was on his mind. \u201cObviously, it helps when you\u2019re winning games, but you\u2019d be crazy not to know what\u2019s going on around the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s on a tremendous heater right now,\u201d Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki<\/a> said after Caufield potted goals 48 and 49 against the New York Rangers<\/a> last Thursday. \u201cPlaying the right way, doing the right things and getting rewarded for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal (45-22-10) booked their spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second consecutive season on Saturday, and are currently two points back of the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> for the top spot in the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield scored his 50th goal of the season on Thursday against the Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,41181,5,33168,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-549121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-cole-caufield-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8481540","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-8","12":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116377640340797812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}