Fantasy Focus: Zachary Bolduc

After splitting his rookie season between St. Louis and their farm team, Zachary Bolduc was a regular on the Blues last season.  Now, following his trade to Montreal, what should the Habs be expecting from him?

2024-25

The first quarter of the season wasn’t great for Bolduc.  He was a healthy scratch five times and spent a lot of time on the fourth line.  Along the way, he wasn’t scoring or bringing a whole lot to the table.  The end result was some fans and pundits calling for him to be sent back to AHL Springfield.  That didn’t happen and instead, they fired their coach, quickly scooping up Jim Montgomery after Boston let him go.

As it so happened, Bolduc scored twice in the first game after the coaching change, making a strong first impression.  He was in the lineup more regularly (only sitting once) while seeing his playing time go up by two minutes a game.  With that, he managed five goals and two assists, better numbers than just the five helpers of the first quarter but he still wasn’t overly impactful.

That changed in the second half.  Montgomery encouraged Bolduc to play more physically and get engaged in the play more often and that seemed to get him going.  Despite still largely playing on the third line, he picked up five goals and five assists in the third quarter of the season, taking a nice step forward.

Then, late in the season, he found another gear.  The physicality continued to pick up and the coaching staff discovered that he can contribute on the power play.  Bolduc scored six power play goals over the final quarter of the season as part of his nine overall, albeit on an unsustainable 19.1 shooting percentage.  He once again had five helpers while his ice time edged up to just under 15 minutes per night.  Considering he was in and out of the lineup and on the fourth line early on in the year, that was a solid show of improvement.

The playoffs were a bit of a struggle, however.  Bolduc got into some penalty trouble early on in the series as he turned up the edginess a little too much.  Meanwhile, he was dropped to the fourth line for part of the series and while he averaged a little under three hits per game, he didn’t bring much else to the table.  That wasn’t the best of endings to the season but on the whole, he appeared to cement himself as part of their future plans until the surprising July 1st trade.

Regular Season Stats: 72 GP, 19-17-36, +20, 37 PIMS, 7 PPG, 0 GWG, 120 shots, 12:48 ATOI
Playoff Stats: 7 GP, 0-1-1, -1, 16 PIMS, 0 PPG, 0 GWG, 7 shots, 13:17 ATOI

5-Year Averages

Considering last season was Bolduc’s first full NHL campaign, there’s not a lot else to work with so let’s skip this section.

2025-26 Role

At first glance, Bolduc profiles as exactly the type of physical forward that could be complementary to someone like Ivan Demidov.  But Patrik Laine is still in the mix and the two of them might wind up being together. And while Bolduc has been a centre in the lower levels, he hasn’t been tested at that spot in the NHL and likely won’t be asked to just yet as he adapts to a new team.

With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Bolduc start in the bottom six this season and where he lands will depend on if they plan to use a veteran line as they did a year ago.  If that’s the case, Jake Evans lines up with Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson, leaving Bolduc on somewhat of a leftover line.  If they don’t do that, Bolduc could conceivably start on either the third or the fourth line.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see him moved around the lineup though, including a bit of time on the second line if a shakeup is needed.  He could be one of the more bounced-around players on the depth chart.

From a special teams perspective, Bolduc averaged 1:18 per game on the power play last season.  That probably won’t go up a ton; although he finished the season strong, he’s probably not landing on the top power play with Montreal.  And as we saw last season, the top wave will get a much bigger share of the workload.  He should see some time on the second unit though.  Meanwhile, he averaged less than one second of action per game on the penalty kill.  That should change.  Bolduc had some intriguing defensive metrics last season and with multiple options to fill shorthanded following the departures of Christian Dvorak and Joel Armia, it stands to reason that he’s going to get a chance on one of those units, which should give him a chance to boost his ATOI.

Projected Stats

Given how Bolduc finished last season, it’s fair to say that there are expectations for him to take another step forward this year.  I can see the logic in the hope but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.

Based on my line assessment above, I think Bolduc is going to spend most of his time at even strength in Montreal’s bottom six.  History tells us that the Habs don’t get a lot of scoring from their bottom six in a typical season.  And the 15.8 shooting percentage he had probably isn’t sustainable.  Meanwhile, if he’s not getting a lot of top power play time, he’s probably not racking up the points there either as he did down the stretch.  Yes, his ATOI might go up with some penalty killing usage but that isn’t going to lead to a big jump in points either.

I’m not going to say a big drop in points is coming but the improvement might be more incremental; he’s not a viable breakout candidate in my opinion.  But even with that, Bolduc is a player who will have some fantasy usage.  If he stays healthy, a point total in the 40s is reasonable to project while his late-season increase in physicality should carry over, especially to a team whose home scorekeepers for hits are, well, generous.  So, for pools with that category, move him up in the rankings.  Bolduc should be a solid back-half selection in most deeper formats.

GP: 80
Goals: 21
Assists: 22
Points: 43
+/-: +6
PIMS: 45
PPG: 2
GWG: 1
Shots: 152