MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- The comments started pouring in quickly once St. Louis Blues fans realized when the cost for acquiring promising 22-year-old defenseman Logan Mailloux for a more polished 22-year-old in forward Zack Bolduc would be on the table.

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But there were also fans that understood the deal ... 

But a lot of the focus seems to be on an incident that happened when Mailloux was 17 years old. It was a mistake in which he apologized for, has in a sense moved on from with his willingness to address it and make himself a better person. 

"To be honest with you, I think it’s something that it’s not just in the rear view for me," Mailloux said in a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon. "I think it’s something that I’ve carried with me every day. It’s something that I want to be able to make a positive impact.

"I think when I dealt with all of that, in the past few years, I’ve felt I’ve grown a lot, as a person, off the ice. I’ve been around the community in Montreal and like I said, I look forward to getting to St. Louis and being able to make a positive impact around the community there. Just turning my whole situation, which was a negative situation, being able to turn that into a positive is something I’ve really tried to do."

The Blues did their homework on this one, as they have in the past with things that have come up with either a player or coach off the ice. Take coach Jim Montgomery for example, who was brought on as an assistant coach in 2020 after being fired by the Dallas Stars for conduct detrimental to the organization. That's worked out well.

When the Blues selected Bolduc with the 17th pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, Mailloux was the 31st pick, and it was by choice. 

"His draft year, he was dealing with things off ice," Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said, "and there was a request by the player not to be drafted. We didn't take him with our pick and Montreal did. It's a difficult situation. He's a young man and he made a mistake. Obviously we've done research on that. We followed his career since then. The league has obviously done their due diligence and allowed him into the league. We understand what he did, but we also understand that everyone makes mistakes and he's paid for it and he'll continue to pay for it and we'll continue to work with him. But it's not something that we weren't aware of. I guess personally a second opportunity that the Canadiens gave him and us trading for him shows that there is the ability to change the narrative."

"Adding Mailloux fills a void for us today and tomorrow," Armstrong added. "In a league where you have to give something to get something, we gave something that we had, not a surplus in, but a good winger that we have good wingers in. I think Montreal gave something on right defense that they have a surplus in. Time will tell how it works out, but I think both teams are excited."

The Blues understand that this certainly could be a gamble, since Mailloux has all of eight games' worth of NHL experience, including seven of them with the Montreal Canadiens last season, and Bolduc came into his own last season with 19 goals and 36 points in 72 games, playing his best after Montgomery was hired in late November. 

"I think that if you use the adage if you give an NHL defenseman 200 games, he's a little shy of that by about 190," Armstrong said of Mailloux, who had two goals and two assists with the Canadiens last season and 33 points (12 goals, 21 assists) with the Laval Rocket of the American Hockey League last season. "We're going to bring him in and we're going to grow with him, but we think he has the opportunity to be a top-four D obviously. 

"During the year, we always go and rate prospects and where we have them, and he's always been in an area where we felt he's a top four talent NHL defenseman, maybe even a little bit higher. Time is going to tell our scouting skills."

What the Blues did, beginning last August when they were able to land Philip Broberg from the Edmonton Oilers via offer sheet, is change the dynamic of their blue line, and adding another young, promising player that is just scratching the surface and is 6-foot-3, 213 pounds brings a new, and what they hope is an improved look.

"I just think that getting Broberg last year, 6-3, and getting Mailloux who is 6-3 and adding the three guys we drafted last year (Adam Jiricek, Colin Ralph and Lukas Fischer), it's balance. We have a young centerman in [Dalibor] Dvorsky. Now, can we add more young centermen? Sure. Can we add another young goalie? Sure. But that doesn't happen overnight and we've been able to revamp the outlook of our D from a year ago to today just with the additions of Broberg and Mailloux and we'll continue to see how we can improve our team."

That's why this was a tough trade to make, allowing Bolduc, who was seemingly in the long-term plans, go in this trade. 

"We went back and forth," Armstrong said. "The question was, 'OK, where is our surplus? Where are we the deepest? It was on the wing. If we don't get involved in something like this, when's the next player like this going to be available? Again, Montreal has done a nice job. They made a great trade for [Noah] Dobson (with the New York Islanders). Then they have a player that I think they took (fifth) overall a couple years ago [David Reinbacher]. There's only so much ice time and we were able to take a player that we have very, very high expectations for in Bolduc and have respect for and turn that into a defenseman in the same way. 

"I said this to (director of amateur scouting) Tony Feltrin. It's like you're trading a child when those guys spend that much time (drafting and developing a player). But we can't do this trade unless they do their job. If we didn't have [Jimmy] Snuggerud, if we didn't have Bolduc, if we didn't have [Jake] Neighbours, if you're not hitting on those picks, you're not involved in trades like this. It's a bittersweet day because having to trade Zack, how he's grown with us, how we drafted him. He's been at these (development) camps that we have right now, we've watched him grow, he went to the American League, he came up here and then he's played really good hockey. I think he's going to do great in Montreal. I don't want to speak for him, but I hope that going home lessens the blow for him."