Cole Caufield Picks Up A Massive 8 Year Contract Extension In Montreal, A Huge Win For Short Kings Everywhere
Vitor Munhoz. Getty Images.Before we even get started here, what's going on in this photo? I searched "cole caufield goal" for the header image and this popped up. Is Cole Caulfield celebrating a goal scored in warmups? It looks like this has to be warmups. Maybe it's when the team comes back onto the ice after warmups and he's just firing up the crowd? But at that point more fans would be in the seats in Montreal. Who knows. But I digress. The moral of the story here is that Cole Caufield is now as rich as he is undersized.
8-years, $7.85M AAV. Cole Caufield ain't going nowhere. The Cock better be taking some extra French lessons, because he's staying in Montreal until he's 30 now.
This is obviously a great signing by the Montreal Canadiens. You get to lock in a huge piece of your core for what could possibly be an absolute bargain. Every since Marty St. Louis came to town, Cole Caufield has been a weapon. He scored 26 goals in just 46 games last year. The shoulder injury wasn't great and it required surgery, but I doubt that's too much of a concern moving forward. He's a kid who has floor potential of being a 30-goal scorer, and could absolutely hit the 50 mark at some point in his career. Getting a guy like that for under $8M before the salary cap jumps up is huge.
You keep building around guys like Caufield, Suzuki, and Slafkovsky and now the Montreal Canadiens look like they could just be a few pieces away from being contenders every year. It's certainly not a bad contract for Cole Caufield, either. Lock up $62.8M as a 22-year-old? There are for sure worse ways to make a living. Do I think a bridge deal could have ended up being a little more lucrative for him in a few years from now? Absolutely. But having that 8-year term on the contract takes any additional uncertainty off off him and he can just focus on his game for the next 8-years instead of constantly talking to his agent. And his game is scoring goals.
But most importantly, this contract is a massive win for Short Kings everywhere. Cole Caufield is generously listed at 5'7", 174lbs. Certified tuna can. Everywhere you turn, there's a war being waged on men who are under 6' tall. It gets even more intense against men who are under 5'10". There seems to be some sort of middle ground there between dudes who are 5'10" and 5'11" on which side of the aisle they fall on. But if you're under 5'10", the world is certainly set up against you.
But Short Kings are resilient. Short Kings are gritty. Short Kings thrive in the face of adversity. I'm sure at plenty of points throughout his season, people said that Cole Caufield is too small to make it at the next level. From bantams to the USHL to the NCAA to the NHL. And even when he made it to the NHL, there was always doubt that he could be as productive as he'd been his entire career. No way would he be able to hold up and be a 30-goal scorer in this league. No way would he be a guy who would land himself an 8-year, $7+ million contract. But Cole Caufield earned every single penny of this extension for Short Kings everywhere.
What an absolute beauty. Play the song!