Montreal Canadiens: Logan Mailloux Showed Off Strengths, Will Be Huge Part Of Laval Rocket
The Montreal Canadiens began training camp with very few openings on the blue line.
The team used five rookies regularly and they all played well, improved and looked comfortable at the NHL level. Moving one of them out of their slot, or surpassing veterans Mike Matheson and David Savard seemed unlikely for anyone.
It would have been an easy guess to suggest Matheson, Savard, Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Johnathan Kovacevic, Justin Barron and Arber Xhekaj would all start the 2023-24 season on the Canadiens roster.
Any newcomer would be in tough to even make the management team think they should change that plan. Logan Mailloux did not make the team, but he did everything he could to force management’s hand and stuck around longer than anyone expected at the beginning of camp.
After scoring 25 goals and 53 points in 59 OHL games with the London Knights last regular season, and following that up with 24 points in 21 playoff games, Mailloux came to camp with some offensive pedigree.
He certainly did not disappoint, showing a lot of growth in a short training camp as he went from a somewhat tentative player in the early days to an aggressive, confident player with the puck in the later days of camp. He showed he could possibly be a weapon on the power play in the future at the very least, and perhaps a skilled puck moving defender who can put up points.
It will take time though. He was sent down to the Laval Rocket which is the perfect situation for him at this point in his career. The 2021 first round pick turned 20 in April but has missed significant time in the past three years.
In 2020-21 he went to Sweden to play in their third tier pro league because the OHL was shutdown due to Covid. He played just 19 games that season and only 12 the following year due to various suspensions.
He did play a full season last year, but has played a total of 111 games over the past three seasons. That’s an average of 37 games per year, which isn’t terrible since it is basically what a three year college player would play, but Mailloux dealt with various injuries and could benefit from just playing a lot of hockey in 2023-24.
He will get the chance to do that in the AHL. The Rocket should be a team fuelled by youngsters and Mailloux will have the chance to carve out a huge role on right defense. We could see him playing top pairing minutes pretty much right away and definitely be the quarterback of their power play.
While Mailloux, like any 20 year old defender, has plenty of work to do when it comes to defending at the pro level and reading the play so he knows when to attack and when to play it safe, he will get the chance to do that with the Rocket. He is skilled and fast enough to make some fantastic offensive plays at the AHL level, but the opposition is also good enough to keep him honest defensively so he learns that delicate balance of offense and defense.
If he continues to play and progress like he did in less than two weeks at NHL camp, Mailloux will make quite a name for himself in the AHL this season. It won’t be long before he gets his turn with the Canadiens as well, and he showed in camp he could be a unique player as a big, physical, right shot defenseman who is capable of putting up plenty of offense from the blue line as well.
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