NHL Notebook: Trent Frederic expects hometown of St. Louis to be ‘buzzing’ for Cup Final, but childhood allegiances an afterthought

It should only take a couple seconds of parsing through the Rolodex of narratives to identify the top storylines set to be drawn from a Stanley Cup Final between the Bruins and Blues.

A rematch 49 years in the making? Check.

David Backes facing his former club of 10 years? Check.

As a former captain of the Blues, Backes has had to deal with an “inundation of messages” from former teammates, family and old acquaintances from his tenure in St. Louis.

The same situation has befallen Trent Frederic when it comes to handling the stream of messages sprouting up on his phone.

It’s a bit of a different situation for Frederic, however. Whereas Backes logged 727 regular-season games with the Blues, Frederic has only played for one club — the Bruins. And for a grand total of 15 games.

But the 21-year-old pivot is still stuck in a bit of an odd situation. After all, the lone club standing between the Bruins and a Stanley Cup title just had to be the team he’s cheered on since he was a kid growing up in Missouri.



“Some people have been texting me, like, ‘Who should I root for?,” Frederic, a St. Louis native, said. "But it’s up to them, right? … I was obviously rooting for the Blues to make it far, and now it’s Blues-Bruins. It's unreal.”

Frederic will likely not make an anticipated homecoming debut at Enterprise Center this spring — at least, not unless the injury bug rears its head when it comes to Boston’s group of pivots.

Frederic hasn’t suited up for game action in close to a month, as the Providence Bruins’ campaign came to an end against the Charlotte Checkers back on April 26.

But the center has kept busy during the Bruins’ march to the Cup Final, standing as one of 10 Providence and junior hockey products that form Boston’s Black Aces —  a group of skaters/goalies that are essentially added insurance for a team during its Stanley Cup run.

While they largely practice independently from the NHL roster, the Aces serve as part of the club’s expanded postseason roster, and are often thrown into a starting role when needed due to injuries.

“We’re skating hard and working out,” Frederic said. “We’ve been off for a while now, so we’re just staying with it. Hopefully none of us have to jump in, but if we do, then we’ll be ready.”

Some unfortunate circumstances would necessitate Boston having to call upon Frederic to make his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut — but the former first-round pick is making the case to be the next man up if need be.

During Thursday’s scrimmage at TD Garden, Frederic and the rest of the Black Aces were scattered throughout the lineup. While Frederic’s physical style of play was negated by Boston’s desire to avoid teammate-on-teammate injuries, he still made his presence felt — setting up Anton Blidh for a one-time goal during the intrasquad matchup.

“I think it helps them, they're around a real good hockey team,” Bruce Cassidy said of the Black Aces. “Maybe a (Jack) Studnicka who hasn't been around this group in a long time, Freddy has been up and down, Paul Carey he's a little older, Zach (Senyshyn) came up late — another opportunity for him to play against good players, (Urho) Vaakanainen hasn't been here in a while really.

“I think it's good for those guys to see these guys how they work. It's a small sample size, one scrimmage. It would be great to incorporate them in a practice a little more but we have our own goal and agenda right now that we can't be worried about that part of it, they're around but they skate after. I think it would help them, they can answer that. I thought they played well they scored two goals at least, those guys fit right in.”

Boston vs. St. Louis may not be as flashy of a matchup as say, an Original Six battle against the Blackhawks in 2013 or other heavyweight bouts, but Frederic was quick to note that Missouri should not be discounted as a hockey market – especially when it comes to producing NHL talent.

During the 2016 NHL Draft, Frederic was one of five players selected in the first round that have roots in St. Louis — joining Matthew Tkachuk, Clayton Keller, Logan Brown and Luke Kunin in what was a loaded class of prospects.

“It’s all the guys who played for the Blues and moved back there,” Frederic said of the reasoning for the growing pipeline of NHL talent coming out of Missouri. “They had kids or just went out and (coached). It’s kind of the reason we had a big group of kids my age — Keith Tkachuk, Jeff Brown, Al MacInnis — just a group of guys that all stayed back, they like St. Louis so they stayed there and it’s nice to have them coaching us. I think that’s the main reason.”

Frederic added: “St. Louis hockey has grown. It’s pretty cool. My dad was saying that it sounds like the city is buzzing and I’m really excited to see Games 3 and 4.”

Even if he cannot take to the ice with the rest of the Bruins over the next couple of weeks, Frederic is taking this entire playoff push in stride — especially if a player he idolized growing up in Backes is able to hoist the Cup.

“I’m sure it's going to be, I don’t know if the word is weird, but I’m sure it’s going to be a little strange,” Frederic said of Backes playing against the Blues. “Just playing for a team — put all of his hard hard work into them — and then he comes here. It’s going to be pretty crazy. I know he said something like, Wish we could be rooting for them another time. … Perfect world, right? Now, he has a chance to take it from them.”

Other Bruins Notes

While Zdeno Chara (undisclosed injury) seems to be good to go for Game 1 against the Blues on Monday, David Krejci’s situation is a bit murkier — as the center missed practice on Saturday at TD Garden due to illness. He was previously sent home before Thursday’s scrimmage after dealing with a bit of a fever.

"Precautionary," Cassidy said of Krejci. "I suspect we'll see him tomorrow. That is the plan. If he's not out tomorrow, now there's a little bit of worry there. But right now, I believe he'll be practicing tomorrow."

Boston’s bench boss added: "Obviously we'd like to have him out there. We're going through some things, special teams with his group, certain tendencies with St. Louis that we're trying to defend against or try to exploit on the offensive side of things. He'll miss that.

"But at the end of the day, he's been around for a long time — very cerebral player — so that part of it I'm not concerned about. He can pick things up in a hurry. It's more about when you miss two, three days, do you have your legs? Do you have your stamina?Just missing this bit of time you lose a bit of that getting back to the grind. He'll have to catch up quickly.”