I’m guessing at best he gives us fits like Matheson. I hope he can cut out the brain cramps
At this point I think it's a baked-in flaw with this player and that we'll need to live through the mistakes if he ever makes it to the pros.
Which I don't expect to happen given the severe lack of progress on Mailloux's side this season. I actually think Mailloux regressed defensively this year.
Last year, at least the effort was more consistent defensively on his part. But now he just keeps making the same dumb mistakes, playing angry, and struggling big time against the forecheck.
I thought Mailloux would have learned how to take a check and make a simple play on the boards while sustaining pressure, keeping things simple and clean in his zone by now.
But no, Mailloux handles the cycle and forechecking pressure like I handle the Bruins beating us in a playoff game; badly, if you hadn't already guessed.
"Get yourself drunk out of aggravation and then somehow, someway get defeated by your own impotent rage" type of bad.
So yeah, if Reinbacher ends up becoming a top-4D for us and we manage to acquire another long-term D (with Hutson, Guhle, and Reinbacher) this offseason, it'll be very, very hard for Mailloux to make this Canadiens team at all.
Mailloux has a very offensive-oriented skillset, one that might not work at all when put on a third D pairing expected to regularly PK while also not getting great offensive opportunities nor PP time.
A guy like Xhekaj is a much better fit for third-pairing D than Mailloux, same for Struble, same for Engstrom too given his much better defensive awareness.
Mailloux I think ends up being a Justin Barron for us; a guy that has a lot of tools but fails to put them together for us before we trade him.
We've just arrived at the point of our rebuild when we can't just be patient and hope a young player's problems magically fix themselves. All of which to say that Mailloux may be the first casualty on D of that shift in focus.