Frederic’s feet planted firmly
Prior to the start of the season, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery eyeballed
Trent Frederic as a net-front candidate for the power play.
Frederic’s size, hands, and athleticism, noted Montgomery, earned him the look. The coach went on to detail Frederic’s prowess as a high school quarterback in suburban St. Louis.
Coaches know a lot. It’s their business to know a lot. But few in the NHL are able to drill down to such detail.
Granted, Montgomery ended his pro playing career with the UHL Missouri River Otters (where he also began his coaching career) in 2004-05. Frederic was age 7 that spring.
How would Montgomery know Frederic’s athletic exploits?
“I’m pals with his dad,” explained Montgomery, whose wife is from St. Louis. “We both belong to the MAC.” MAC?
“Missouri Athletic Club,” said Montgomery. “It’s kind of a big deal there.”
The MAC, said Frederic, has proven to be a great networking tool for his dad, whose father and uncle nearly a century ago started Frederic Roofing, which remains the family business. His dad, Bob, runs the operation these days, along with Trent’s brothers, Gene
and Grant.
St. Louis summers can be hot, noted the 24-year-old winger, and the combination of heat and inherent danger of a steep roof can make it hard to find labor.
“Pretty much my whole family is up on the roof now,” he said, agreeing that the roofing life can make sustaining cross-checks at the net seem less intimidating.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “But it’s pretty good pay. In the summer, you can only go maybe from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., but you can make $50 an hour. That’s pretty good money. You can make a good living doing it.”
On the Bruins’ books this season for just north of $1 million, Frederic will be a restricted free agent next summer. He is becoming more of a presence in the bottom six, and no doubt enhanced his roster standing with his impressive bout Thursday against the Rangers’
Barclay Goodrow. The Bruins need someone to fill that toughness niche.
Trent Frederic worked only one summer for Frederic Roofing.
“Between my junior and senior year in high school,” he recalled. “But it kind of messes with training for [hockey]. At that point, I got drafted [by the Bruins] and I went to college that summer, so every summer I was at [the University of Wisconsin] taking classes. I stop in every summer and say hi to the guys, but I don’t get on the roof.”
Loose pucks
If you’re just joining us, it’s happening again: Oilers wizard Connor McDavid leads the NHL scoring list: 1212—24 through 11 games prior to weekend action. The 25-year-old center topped the charts the last two seasons, delivering an average 114 points. Six of his 12 goals this season have been on the power play, an astounding pace of 45 for the season. Chris Kreider led the NHL last season with 26 PPGs . . . Meanwhile, Bruce Cassidy’s Golden Knights are tearing it up (10-2-0 heading into the weekend), led by North Chelmsford’s Jack Eichel (5-8–13), who is back to being the player that made him the No. 2 pick in the 2015 draft. Cassidy’s start in the desert is reminiscent of his February 2017 start in Boston, when the Bruins went 7-1-0 in his first eight games, and then inched into the playoffs after Cassidy pulled them out of the 26-23-6 doldrums that had them headed toward a third consecutive playoff DNQ. Biggest surprise thus far for the Golden Knights: the netminding of 6-4 Logan Thompson, who went undrafted out of junior hockey and had played in only 20 NHL games prior to this season. Now he’s the No. 1, backed by exCoyotes draftee Adin Hill . . . Lost in the shuffle last weekend: Ex-Northeastern forward David Poile became the first NHL GM with 3,000 games, the accumulation of his four decades on the job with the Capitals and Predators. Poile, 72, was new on the Capitals job when he pulled off the monster trade (Sept. 9, 1982) with the Canadiens that brought a 25-year-old Rod Langway to
Landover, along with Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis, and Craig Laughlin (Rick Green and Ryan Walter headed north). The Capitals, who had not made it to the playoffs in their first eight seasons, made it in each of the 11 seasons that Langway was on the backline, and right up until Poile left to lead the expansion Predators in 1997. You’re a real Hub hockeyphile if you remember that Poile, upon graduating from Northeastern, played the 1970-71 season with the Braintree Hawks . . . Torey Krug and the freefalling Blues will be at the Garden Monday night, with the Bruins looking to improve their Causeway Street record to 7-0-0. The Blues, who captured the Cup at the Garden in 2019, have lost six in a row, drubbed by an aggregate 30-10. Blues GM Doug Armstrong lamented this past week, “We’re in the bottom quartile of everything that matters.”