
Blues forward Zack Bolduc attempts a shot, breaking Kings defender Jacob Moverare’s stick in the first period of a game Saturday, March 1, 2025, at Enterprise Center.
LOS ANGELES — Zack Bolduc likes his routines.
He’s been flipping his helmet upside down in his stall as a superstition. Since the break, the Blues have traveled with a figurine of Jobu (the doll kept in Pedro Cerrano’s locker in the 1989 baseball comedy “Major League”), and it sits in the stall next to Bolduc at Enterprise Center.
Recently for Bolduc, his routine has included scoring goals.
Bolduc entered Wednesday night’s game in Los Angeles with four goals in the past four games, including one in each of the team’s past two games. Since Feb. 6, Bolduc has five goals and two assists in eight games, the most productive eight-game stretch of his career.
“Every game since we’ve been back, I’ve been confident in Bolduc because he’s just doing the right things to help us win,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.
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Bolduc has helped solidify the Blues’ third line with Oskar Sundqvist and Mathieu Joseph, allowing St. Louis to play its eighth straight game with the same forward lines when it takes on the Kings. And he’s also cemented himself in the Blues lineup after he was a scratch four times in January.
“I think he’s shooting the puck well,” Joseph said. “He’s deceptive in the way he shoots the puck, but also he works hard in practice, too. His detail around the game is getting way better than the beginning of the year. He’s such a skilled, elite shot player, and it takes time in this league not necessarily to get going but to understand what’s open for you, how the league’s played.”
Montgomery has spoken this week about Bolduc’s details being improved from earlier in the season, and that includes away from the puck. The 2021 first-round pick has produced prolifically in the past but usually had questions about his defensive game.
What areas of Bolduc’s game has Montgomery been impressed with?
“Stopping on pucks,” Montgomery said. “Defensively, not falling below the puck and the other two things, which are the more important things: What he looks like when he’s really good is his speed and physicality in one-on-one battles. Just the poise with the puck, and you can see him getting confident and hanging on to pucks.”
Bolduc: “I think it’s an everyday thing. You’ve got to do some video. You’ve got to focus on the practices so it becomes natural. In games, you’ve got to think about it. It’s an everyday battle. You’ve got to think about your details, and you’ve got to be ready in practices to do good things.”
Quietly, Bolduc has had one of the best seasons by a Blues rookie in the past decade.
Entering Wednesday, Bolduc had 10 goals and 22 points this season, making him the first Blues rookie since Robby Fabbri in 2015-16 with at least 10 goals and 20 points. Patrik Berglund, T.J. Oshie, David Perron and David Backes also eclipsed those figures in their rookie seasons.
Across the league, Bolduc is tied for seventh in goals and tied for ninth in points among rookies. No NHL rookie has more goals than Bolduc (five) since the start of February.
“One thing that makes it easy is playing with the same guys game after game,” Bolduc said. “You can build some chemistry, and I like playing with my linemates right now. I think our games are mixing well together. It’s been great.”
Joseph said Bolduc’s shot is “really powerful.”
“He also has really good vision that makes defenders think he can pass the puck,” Joseph said. “I think the fact that he has a long stick, too, helps. He has a range to his shot, which can pull shot back to where he is.”
Work to do
The Blues will try to correct their penalty kill, which entered Wednesday having allowed goals on each of the opponent’s past five power plays. On Sunday in Dallas, the Stars scored four times on the man-advantage.
“We didn’t win faceoffs like we had been, that was one,” Montgomery said. “Two, our up-ice pressure, Dallas did a good job against what we were trying to do. Then I would say our aggressiveness. We weren’t as aggressive. That first one went in, and all of a sudden, we were in between. When you’re in between, you end up giving up (more). That one goal, they made eight passes.”
At 70.3%, the Blues own the third-worst PK in the NHL but the sixth-worst since the league began tracking penalty killing in 1977.