Overview
- Caufield reached the mark Thursday with a wrist shot at 6:29 of the second period at the Bell Centre, finishing a rush started by Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky to beat Andrei Vasilevskiy.
- Slafkovsky scored the tiebreaker with 1:04 left for his 30th of the season as Montreal closed out a playoff-style game in which Suzuki logged two assists to hit 70.
- The game turned nasty at times with multiple scrums and a Josh Anderson fight, and the teams combined for 126 penalty minutes as both power plays went scoreless.
- The win pushed Montreal two points ahead of Tampa Bay and two behind Buffalo for the Atlantic lead, with three games left for the Canadiens and Lightning and two for the Sabres.
- Caufield is the first Canadien to hit 50 since 1989-90 and the seventh in club history, standing at 50 goals and 87 points without an empty-netter as he contends with Nathan MacKinnon for the Rocket Richard Trophy; cameras also showed his father wiping away tears after the goal.