Cole Caufield is regarded as a big part of the Montreal Canadiens, who want to sign him to a long-term contract, Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes said Wednesday.
Although Hughes made Montreal’s intentions clear, he said he did not want to publicly discuss negotiations on a new contract for the 22-year-old forward, who can become a restricted free agent after this season, when his three-year, entry-level contract expires. contract expires.
“One thing for sure is that we want to keep Cole Caufield long term and I think Cole Caufield wants to stay with us long term,” Hughes said at the Canadiens practice facility in Brossard, Quebec.
Caufield leads the Canadiens in goals with 26 in 45 games, and he’s second on Montreal in scoring with 36 points, one behind center. Nick Suzuki.
Selected by the Canadiens with the No. 15 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, he has 84 points (53 goals, 31 assists) in 122 games with Montreal since making his NHL debut in 2020-21, and 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 20 Stanley Cup Playoff games. .
Video: MTL@NYR: Caufield gets a pass in front and scores
Hughes said he has spoken with the defenseman Joel Edmundson and forward Josh Anderson regarding their names being mentioned in trade rumors.
“Obviously Eddie’s name has been out a lot and Josh, his name’s out all the time it seems, at least since I’ve been here,” Hughes said. “So I met with both of them just to say, ‘I’m watching some of this stuff on TV, it’s not necessarily accurate. I can’t control speculation so if you have questions or you’re upset by things, just come see me,’ and just try to tell them what I can tell them.”
Montreal placed forward Sean Monahan (lower body) on long-term injured reserve Monday, part of a rash of recent injuries on the roster.
Forward Juraj Slafkovsky will be out for three months with a lower-body injury; center Jake Evans will be out 8-10 weeks with a lower-body injury; forwards Joel Armia and Jonathan Drouin each will be out until the NHL All-Star break because of an upper-body injury; and goalie Jake Allen will be out at least a week with an upper-body injury.
“Not much you can do about it and we’ll see how his return to play is and his return to health, then we’ll have decisions to make,” Hughes said regarding Monahan. “If somebody is injured and they can’t be traded, it is what it is. It’s just part of the sport.”
Hughes said one player who won’t be traded is the goalie Sam Montembeaultwho has gone 3-2-0 in five consecutive starts since Allen was injured and is 9-7-2 with a 3.05 goals-against average and .912 save percentage in 18 starts this season.
“We want to keep him,” Hughes said. “He is having a really good run right now. He’s still young (26) for an NHL goalie. It’s hard to think that with a small sample size you can predict the future for Sam, but for sure we can see that he has a certain potential so Sam is not going anywhere else.”
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