Zack Bolduc and Logan Mailloux have surely had this date circled on their respective calendars since July 1.
That was the day the Montreal Canadiens traded Mailloux to the St. Louis Blues for Bolduc, an example of two teams trading from areas of excess to address areas of need.
At this point, a little more than a quarter of the way through the season, it would be fair to say both teams are still waiting for their new players to actually address those needs.
Mailloux spent some time in the American Hockey League after a difficult start. Meanwhile, after Bolduc got off to a hot start, but he has cooled considerably and now finds himself on Montreal’s fourth line.
Let’s take a deeper look at how each player has fit into his new environment as they each prepare to face the team that traded him away.
Zack Bolduc
Bolduc’s first season in Montreal could not have gotten off to a much better start. He scored in each of his first three games in a Canadiens uniform. The trade looked brilliant right off the bat.
Then Bolduc scored one goal over his next 18 games.
Evaluating Bolduc’s game cannot be limited to counting goals and assists, however. The Canadiens targeted him for reasons that go well beyond that. It was in part to replace something they had lost when they traded Emil Heineman to the New York Islanders in the Noah Dobson deal a week earlier, a strong forechecker who could play a physical game and secure possession of the puck deep in the offensive zone.
Canadiens’ president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton referred to Bolduc a little over a week after the trade as an emerging “physical power forward.”
“The thing that jumps out, I don’t even know if that’s analytically, is that he’s really good at being F1 and getting on pucks and getting to and finishing his checks and owning pucks down low,” Gorton said back in July. “That, and the obvious one is he’s getting chances from the home plate area, the scoring chance area, the ‘A’ chances at a higher rate than a lot of people on our team.”
The reality, more than a quarter of the way through his first season in Montreal, is that Bolduc is still trying to adapt to his new environment, a new style of play and a new coach in Martin St. Louis, who wants more refinement in Bolduc’s defensive game. He is not consistently bringing that power forward game; he is not consistently being an effective F1 on the forecheck, the puckhound the Canadiens saw in him in St. Louis over the latter half of his rookie NHL season; and he is not consistently getting chances from the home plate area (heat map courtesy of HockeyViz).
That’s fine, because Bolduc has a lot of runway ahead of him, and St. Louis likes what he sees from a player who enters this game against the Blues with 123 games of NHL experience.
“He’s a young player, we’re trying to get him to where we know he can get to, and it’s not going to be linear. I think he’s going through that right now,” St. Louis said Saturday morning in Toronto. “For me, Boldy’s a great offensive player, and he’s got to keep working on his defensive game. It’ll be there.”
Perhaps the best stretch of Bolduc’s season came early on when he played with Kirby Dach and Brendan Gallagher, an assignment he got because St. Louis wanted Dach to be playing with two straight-line, north-south wingers as he eased his way back from a second straight surgery on the same knee.
Bolduc was there to make Dach’s life easier, but it was perhaps indicative of what Bolduc needs to succeed as well. As Gorton noted, Bolduc is at his best on the forecheck and might be at his best on a line that has forechecking as its primary identity. In that sense, it’s not all that surprising that Bolduc’s recent audition on the Canadiens’ top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield didn’t really work and didn’t last all that long. That’s not that line’s identity.
While Bolduc has to assume some responsibility for the wavering nature of his impact on games this season — and he has done so on several occasions — the Canadiens also need to do a better job of finding him a line that suits his strengths.
— Arpon Basu
Logan Mailloux
It’s amazing to think that it’s only been six months since the Blues and Canadiens made this trade.
A lot has happened, particularly for Mailloux.
This next section of the article is not meant to be critical of the Blues. They are doing their best to build up a 21-year-old defenseman to play in an extremely tough league for a very long time, but it illustrates how hard that path can be to navigate.
When the Blues acquired Mailloux, general manager Doug Armstrong said, “We think he’s NHL-ready now. I told him he has a job now and it’s his job to come into camp and keep it.” In training camp, Mailloux was impressive, and coach Jim Montgomery confirmed, “He’s NHL-ready.”
When the regular season began, though, Mailloux was not ready. He played the first four games of the season and, in 50 minutes of five-on-five play, he was on the ice for seven goals against and zero goals for his team.
The Blues made Mailloux a healthy scratch, and when confirming the team’s decision, Montgomery indicated that when the defenseman returned to the lineup, he wouldn’t come back out. However, after just one game back in the lineup and a minus-2, he had returned.
Along the way, Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Pronger, who went through a similar situation in the mid-1990s when he was dealt to St. Louis and failed to live up to expectations early, preached patience with Mailloux. In fact, Pronger phoned Maillouix and told him to just be himself.
Finally, on Nov. 9, the Blues assigned Mailloux to AHL Springfield, with Armstrong calling the move a “reset.” Armstrong acknowledged that the defenseman was playing not to make a mistake and needed some confidence. That’s exactly what he got, scoring two goals in five games and logging key minutes with the Thunderbirds.
The Blues recalled Mailloux on Nov. 24, and overall, he’s looked more comfortable. In 80-plus minutes of five-on-five play, he’s been on the ice for two goals for and four against. He was in the lineup for a season-high seventh straight game Saturday in Ottawa.
Montgomery says Mailloux has been moving his feet more on offense and defense, and he’s also playing with snarl. The coach has had him on the power play and considered giving him some three-on-three overtime opportunity.
Most importantly, the Blues and Mailloux seem to be doing right by each other. Despite the expected backlash, the reset was necessary. Despite Mailloux’s own personal disappointment, he’s shown “tremendous character,” according to Montgomery.
This trade was always going to produce a lot of opinions and take years to evaluate. That’s proved to be the case. Their first time facing each other comes at an interesting time, as both are dealing with growing pains, but they’ll both have a chip on their shoulder, too. With Mailloux on the third defensive pair and Bolduc on the fourth line, there’s a chance those chips could collide.
— Jeremy Rutherford
