If one good thing came out of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it’s the proliferation of podcasts. In Quebec, former Montreal Canadiens Maxim Lapierre and Guillaume Latendresse jumped in on the action and started their own called La Poche Bleue. In a laid-back atmosphere, the former NHLers interview various athletes. Last week, they interviewed Habs sniper Cole Caufield.
Caufield was drafted by the Canadiens as the 15th-overall pick of the 2019 draft and it’s one of the topics he discussed with Lapierre and Latendresse. While some players only got through a few interviews at the NHL combine, the diminutive winger was interviewed by 26 teams.
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He felt he had very good interviews with both the Buffalo Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks and thought on the draft morning that they might select him, but after their turn had come and gone, he was still sitting there. Buffalo had selected center Dylan Cozens while the Canadian team picked up Russian forward Vasili Podkolzin. Understandably, to him, the waiting felt like it lasted forever, but in the end, it was the only team that had taken him out to dinner that picked him even though he had ordered a giant sundae as dessert: the Canadiens.
Funnily enough, Caufield mentioned his father was a big Colorado Avalanche fan and even before the team was moved to the USA and it played in Quebec, they were already his dad’s team. The forward didn’t actually know how his father became a fan of theirs, but trust karma to make his dad’s team’s biggest rival pick his son.
Unsurprisingly, Nick Suzuki was the first guy he connected with when he signed his ELC and joined the Canadiens to play his first career game in Calgary. His welcome to the NHL moment was when he had gotten on the team’s plane and sat in one of the first few rows, until Tyler Toffoli texted him to “get back here!” He ended up spending the plane ride with Carey Price, Shea Weber, and of course Toffoli.
Asked what his funniest NHL moment was, he told the hosts that a morning skate in Winnipeg during the 2021 playoffs, he accidentally sent a shot right off Carey Price’s forehead. It was veteran Corey Perry who skated to him and told him never to do that again, not that it needed to be said however, the poor kid already felt like getting off the ice… Understandably, I think anyone would have been ashamed after doing that.
Caufield also discussed how intense the USA national development team program is. As humble as always, he said his objective when he joined the program wasn’t to break Auston Matthews’ goal scoring record, rather just to make the team.
The winger also had some kind words for Brendan Gallagher as a mentor and a leader and for Matin St-Louis who he believes is more of a professor than a coach. If you have a half-hour to spare, I highly recommend checking out the interview. It was a very fun watch.
Related
Canadiens: The Elusive 50-Goal Mark
Cole Caufield Leads NHL in Very Specific Scoring Category
Canadiens: Memorable Short Players and Their Impact in the NHL
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