The Montreal Canadiens received a devastating injury update on Tuesday morning, as it was announced that Ivan Demidov would miss 2-4 weeks with a lower-body injury. Rather than completely shuffling the lines in Demidov's absence, Martin St. Louis moved everyone up a spot, including giving Zachary Bolduc a chance to play on the third line with Alexandre Texier and Phillip Danault.
Bolduc didn't re-sign in Montreal to play on the fourth line, but that was his place since the start of the season with Jake Evans and Josh Anderson. The trio has been fine, but the Quebec native was looking for something more and was hoping to seize his opportunity with a chance to play with Alexandre Texier and Phillip Danault.
It'll be hard for St. Louis not to return to his old lines once Demidov returns, but if Bolduc continues to play as he did on Tuesday night over the next 2-4 weeks, the head coach might have some shuffling to do in the bottom six. The obvious answer would be to give Bolduc Texier's spot on the third line with Danault and Kirby Dach, but he won't earn his coach's trust with just one two-goal performance.
For now, Bolduc has earned the opportunity to stay in the top nine. His line was a force at five-on-five, outscoring their opponents 1-0 while owning a whopping 87.9% shot-attempt differential. They were the best line in that category on either team, which is an impressive feat when your team gets outscored 6-4.
Canadiens' other lines struggled to get going
While the third line was a force, the rest of the forward group didn't do too much to help them out. Nick Suzuki's line scored on two separate occasions, once with his original linemates of Cole Caufield and Chris Kreider, and again later when they reunited Juraj Slafkovsky with his old first line pals. However, outside of Bolduc's trio, no other line had a Shot Attempts differential above 28.7%.
It is a cause for concern that Demidov's absence in the top six caused so many things to go wrong for the majority of the lines. One positive St. Louis can lean on is that, despite the poor advanced numbers, the Canadiens were still in the game until Andrei Svechnikov iced it with an empty-netter with 1:15 to go.
Bolduc did get hot for a short stretch to begin the 2025-26 season before cooling off in the second half. The Canadiens might not expect him to continue this pace in an 84-game sample size, but if he can start finding the back of the net until Demidov returns, it'd be a welcome sight for the front office.
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