If he is able to shoot around 300 pucks a year, I agree he will likely be successful, but the thing is that I am not so convinced he is going to be a 300 shots type of player.
Good. Then I guess the argument is mostly about why I think Cole could do that. But I'll respond to your other points as well.
He is that type of player on the USDP team, but for reasons I previously mentioned, I don't think he will be able to replicate that in the NHL mainly because of the effect of playing versus better competitions, and with much worse linemates relative to the competition. For now, he shoots a lot because he is often set up in a position to shoot, remember that is shooting percentage was 22% and 29% in the USHL, you can't be shooting from all angles and still gets those type of shooting ratio. As he plays against better competitions, he will relies on others more and more but will find himself with less relative support.
1.) Worse linemates relative to competition: if he plays on a first line, he'll always be playing against worse competition on average than his linemates. If he goes to Edmonton, he will literally always be playing with better linemates than his competition. But we're not Edmonton.
2.) But he does shoot from all angles, and again, he rarely misses. The goalie almost always has to make a save, and he's very capable of finding holes. This is where I think you are making a bit of an assumption, which I think is a bit unfair given your charity in the case of Kaliyev. The assumption here being that because Caufield played with Hughes he's just aiming at yawning cages all day. I would submit to you that this is actually more true of Kaliyev, but he doesn't attract QoT attention because he's playing with lower profile players.
And lastly, as for being set up in position to score all the time, doesn't he have to have really good positioning and timing for that to be true? Here's my question for you: how much of him floating around
Also, NHL goaltenders are much bigger and faster, it is very difficult to beat them with a square shot, the lack of power in his shot compared to the average NHL sniper will limit further how good of a goal scorer he can be at the NHL level since blasting one-timers is the way to go to be a desirable shooting option, which is also ideal for tips and rebounds. Otherwise, I don't think he is the second coming of Gallagher either, and again, he has further height deficit to be that type of player, so I don't see that happening. I just can't see him being a dominant force on the ice that scores 40 goals a year. You mainly want shooting power, set up skills and a screen on the PP, he won't be dominant in any of those roles (obviously he could be a decent shooter, but I don't project him as elite in that role, you probably want him closer range, but those implies higher risk plays); at 5 on 5, you ideally don't want 5'7 players for the 200-foot game unless he is extremely skilled, like a Gaudreau, I don't see Caufield being that skilled, his playmaking skills are unimpressive for what you would expect out of a player his size and his speed factoring his size won't be high enough to control the play; which is why I don't see him having the ice time and on-ice opportunities to shoot 300 times a year. Which again is why I see his chances to be successful as limited and his chance of busting as high for a player selected in that range.
Yeah, I don't think Caufield is going to be the first person since Hull to score 80 goals, so some discounting of his goal scoring coming to the NHL is not just reasonable, it's common sense. And defoes not the second coming of Gallagher.
But here's why I think he's going to shoot
a lot. Like I suggest above, his understanding of where to be on the ice, and when to be there is as high as it can be. He is a perfect F3. Good passers need good options, and Cole always presents himself as one. Good F3s are actually really hard to stop, as well, because you're liable to take an interference penalty in so doing. You really can't accuse him of just being set up for easy goals all the time, without admitting this as a strength. Secondly, for all the talk of how much of a disadvantage his size is, there's one aspect where his size is actually an advantage, and that's in digging for pucks in scramble situations. He has such a small stick that when pucks are in people's feet, or in traffic, or coming off a rebound he's going to be first to that puck. He scores a lot of goals that way. And again, because his stick is so small, he almost always has an angle to shoot. He scores a lot of goals in tight from crazy angles this way, and I think the fact that he's small has a lot to do with it. Imagine if you were standing on the goal line and your only chance to score was in the top of the net short side. You would ideally have a youth stick if you wanted to do this.
His playmaking isn't as good as Brink, which I'll give you, but it's also not weak. He can't skate like McDavid but he's also a pretty good skater. I feel like saying that everything needs to be elite for a 5'7 player is just charging a prospect for the same things multiple times. IMO, one gets to ding a prospect for being 5'7 once.
