{"id":600986,"date":"2026-04-13T10:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/600986\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:29:09","slug":"nhl-edge-stats-behind-caufields-rocket-richard-trophy-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/600986\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL EDGE stats behind Caufield\u2019s \u2018Rocket\u2019 Richard Trophy chances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NHL.com&#8217;s fantasy staff continues to cover the latest trends and storylines in the League through the lens of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NHL EDGE<\/a> puck and player tracker stats. Today, we identify some key advanced metrics surrounding Cole Caufield\u2019s late-season push for the Maurice \u201cRocket\u201d Richard Trophy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/cole-caufield-8481540\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cole Caufield<\/a> has had a breakout goal-scoring season with elite underlying metrics and could catch or eclipse\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/nathan-mackinnon-8477492\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>\u00a0to win or claim a share of the Maurice \u201cRocket\u201d Richard Trophy.<\/p>\n<p>Caufield, who has scored an NHL career-high 51 goals in 79 games this season, only trails MacKinnon (52 goals in 78 games) by one goal in the race for the award given to the NHL\u2019s regular-season goal leader(s). Caufield is by far the NHL\u2019s leading goal-scorer since Jan. 1 with 32 goals over that 40-game span and has become the seventh different Montreal Canadiens player to score 50 goals in a season (first since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/stephane-richer-8450825\" title=\"Stephane Richer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stephane Richer<\/a> in 1989-90).<\/p>\n<p>Caufield, who&#8217;s 25 years old,\u00a0leads the NHL in game-winning goals (12), overtime goals (five; tied for second-most in NHL history behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/leon-draisaitl-8477934\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leon<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/leon-draisaitl-8477934\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Draisaitl<\/a>\u2019s six last season) and 5-on-5 goals (33; two ahead of MacKinnon\u2019s 31). MacKinnon leads the NHL in shots on goal (344), while Caufield ranks 15th (247), so Caufield\u2019s higher shooting percentage (20.6; compared to MacKinnon\u2019s 15.1) has helped him close the gap. It\u2019s also worth noting Caufield, who\u2019s in his sixth NHL season, has increased his goal total in each passing campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal has two games remaining, while Colorado has three games left but could rest or manage minutes for MacKinnon and\/or some of his other high-scoring teammates after clinching the Presidents\u2019 Trophy for the most points in the NHL standings.<\/p>\n<p>MacKinnon\u00a0won the Hart Trophy in 2024 as the NHL\u2019s most valuable player in the regular season and Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2022 but has never won the \u201cRocket\u201d Richard Trophy. There have only been two occasions in the past 20 years where the \u201cRocket\u201d Richard Trophy was shared between two players in a season: 2020 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/alex-ovechkin-8471214\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/david-pastrnak-8477956\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Pastrnak<\/a> finished tied with 48 goals each) and 2010 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/sidney-crosby-8471675\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sidney Crosby<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/steven-stamkos-8474564\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Steven Stamkos<\/a> finished tied with 51 goals each).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL.com&#8217;s fantasy staff continues to cover the latest trends and storylines in the League through the lens of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-600986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}