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“As a lifelong Habs fan, I am deeply disappointed by the decision,” Trudeau said during a 2021 news conference. “I think it was a lack of judgment by the Canadiens organization. I think they have a lot of explaining to do to Montrealers and fans across the country.”

In 2020, the 17-year-old Mailloux made a mistake that has stayed with him, a virtual scarlet letter on his hockey sweater. While playing in Sweden, he was charged with two counts for taking and sharing a photo of a woman during a sexual act. As Mailloux worked to reform himself, he asked not to be drafted in 2021. But Montreal still picked him 31st overall. That next season, in the lower-level league in which he played, Mailloux was suspended for four months due to his actions.

In the coming years, he remained a top prospect — and this summer, a half-decade since the incident, Mailloux was traded to ӣ����Ƶ. At first, I wondered about his character. The Blues did copious research and analysis before the trade and said they discovered a remorseful Mailloux. I met him Wednesday after practice — he’s now 22 — and something stood out to me. I asked him what it was like to hear the Trudeau comments.

“It was a bad thing I did, so I don’t want to sit here and kind of victimize myself whatsoever,” Mailloux said.

Sometimes we hear stories of athletes maturing after major mistakes, and such a big deal is made of what the athletes went through, we forget: They brought this upon themselves. So it was good to hear Mailloux point out that he isn’t the victim here.

He said what he did was “awful.”

“I’ve definitely worked with a lot of people over the past few years who helped me grow,” Mailloux continued. “(I want to) turn a negative situation that I was involved in into a positive, whether that’s helping out and educating younger people, whether it’s hockey players or even just kids, because it’s the kind of stuff that happens a lot, like in high school, and people don’t really hear about it too much. ... To make people more aware of their actions and become more educated, then that would definitely be something I’d hope I can do. ...

“When it happened, I was definitely a kid at the time — an immature kid. I was 17, kind of living alone. I felt like going through all that (after the incident), dealing with all that, I kind of had to grow up pretty quickly. I live with it kind of every single day. ... I’ve definitely changed a lot as a person.”

Time doesn’t heal all wounds — we don’t know the woman involved here, but his actions could very well affect her for the rest of her life.

But time provides perspective.

Mailloux served his punishment, says the right things and wants to do good in the community.

And ӣ����Ƶ is now his community.

Here’s thinking he’ll be here for a while. When I asked coach Jim Montgomery about Mailloux, the Blues coach called him “a baby (Colton) Parayko.” Mailloux is also a right-handed defenseman with size — listed at 6 foot 3, 213 pounds — and can cook up offense as much as he can swallow up the other team’s offense.

The Blues dealt young scorer Zack Bolduc to the Habs for him — they had to give to get. And now, a bit into training camp, we’re seeing Mailloux’s budding talents — heck, blossoming talents. He tallied an assist in the preseason game against Dallas. And Wednesday at practice, , Mailloux hesitated on a backhand shot, swiftly wrapped around the net and shoved the puck into the net.

“His instincts have been really good — his skill set is very evident — and his skating is above what I thought it was going to be,” Montgomery said Wednesday. “And the way he handles the puck, he handles the puck like a forward. So he’s that ‘new-age defenseman’ that can play all 200 feet, you know? We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how good he is defensively. And offensively, we think there are other levels to go. He’s just getting his confidence back on that side of things after last year, so that’s a pleasant development for us.”

Mailloux has played only seven games in the National Hockey League, so he’ll be a rookie, along with Blues forward Jimmy Snuggerud. That’s exciting stuff.

“Looking at what (the Blues) did last year, if I can kind of help hopefully build on that, that would be pretty special,” Mailloux said.