The Blues' first major move in free agency was to deal Center Zach Bolduc to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for one of their more interesting prospects, Logan Mailloux.
This move is certainly becoming more controversial as free agency day wears on, no doubt in part of the questions it raised. Why would St. Louis trade away a young player who was potentially due for his 1st 20-goal season in exchange for someone with limited NHL experience? Was it to save a little cap space, which the Blues didn't originally have much of, to begin with before free agency day? They did recently sign veteran center Nick Bjugstad from the Utah Mammoth- that could've been a sign. It's an interesting swap, and on the other hand, Mailloux himself has... a history, to put it lightly.
Let's flashback to ahead of the 2021 NHL Draft, Mailloux is a young prospect from the OHL's London Knights, who are perennially one of junior hockey's biggest programs. Midway through that season, 2020/21, he's interestingly dealt to SK Lejon, a 3rd tier Swedish club in Hockeyettan, below the 2nd tier of HockeyAllsvenskan and the top tier, the Swedish Hockey League, which is another top producer of future NHL stars like the OHL. It's here where Mailloux... gets into some trouble with the law. What it was, I will not explicitly mention, and you can look it up at your own risk. In any case, this severely damaged Mailloux's reputation, and he smartly backed out of that year's upcoming NHL draft... or so we thought. Turns out, Montreal had no qualms whatsoever with the guy, and they'd select him with the 31st pick, instantly generating a wave of reasonable backlash.
As fate would have it, Mailloux ended up spending a lot more time in the AHL than the NHL, playing with one of the newer franchises at the time, the Laval Rocket. His numbers were fairly decent- 14 goals and 33 assists for 47 points in 72 games- but let's just compare that to Bolduc's first AHL season, shall we? Bolduc's numbers? Okay, 8 goals and 17 assists for 25 points, and his following season with Springfield, the Blues' AHL affiliate, wasn't much at all, but Bolduc had become a full-time NHLer by that point; 19 goals and 17 assists for 36 points in 72 games. Even in the first season, he'd suit up in a Blues sweater saw him manage a few goals and assists for 9 points in 25 games. That's not half bad. Mailloux never did anything remotely close to that with Montreal.
Blues fans are right to be upset, myself included, for the team making what seems like an awfully one-sided deal. Trading young players for prospects you can work on is nothing new in today's game, but this one is an exception. Bolduc proved himself last season as one of the Blues' young stars, and he still had plenty to bring to the table along with the likes of fellow stars like Jimmy Snuggerud. And when you look at Bolduc's junior numbers compared to Mailloux, this deal makes less and less sense. It just didn't seem like a reasonable deal for St Louis to make, even if it was to clear up some extra cash. We'll see if Mailloux brings better numbers to the Blues and if Bolduc can excel in Montreal, but you might not be too surprised if neither of those things comes to pass.