It wasn’t long after the Montreal Canadiens drafted defenseman Nathan Beaulieu in 2011 that buyer’s remorse may have set in. In April 2013, literally weeks after he had wrapped up his first handful of games in the NHL as a 20-year-old, he was involved in an altercation that resulted in a guilty plea to assault (and nine months’ probation).
However, the Canadiens as an organization are not exactly strangers to giving young defensemen second chances any longer. And, even though they maybe would have been justified in cutting ties with the guy, it’s a slightly different situation than with a certain other since-departed defenseman who had also run into legal issues.
Whereas Logan Mailloux had pre-emptively requested not to be drafted in 2021 in the wake of his own legal problems, prompting the Habs to of course pick him anyway, the Canadiens had already taken Beaulieu. They arguably had a duty to stakeholders to try to make it work with a highly touted prospect, especially one who projected as an incredibly valuable top-pairing two-way defenseman.
Beaulieu Fails to Catch On with Canadiens
Unfortunately, as everyone well knows by now, Beaulieu, who just announced his retirement after 13 seasons of professional hockey, far from panned out as such. There were flashes of course, with Beaulieu scoring a career-high four goals and 28 points in 2016-17, but in retrospect it’s logical to conclude there was a large degree of correlation between any success he enjoyed and being paired with an in-his-prime Jeff Petry, who was just starting to establish himself as a No. 1B defenseman on the team relative to Shea Weber.
Now, the Canadiens did try Beaulieu out alongside the newly acquired Weber that season. He was the Beaulieu’s second-most-common partner. However, any suggestions he would eventually develop into the top-pairing left-handed defenseman they would actually need with the impending departure of Andrei Markov to the Kontinental Hockey League that offseason were quickly dashed. Assessing Beaulieu as someone they wouldn’t be protecting in the upcoming NHL Expansion Draft (Vegas Golden Knights), ex-General Manager Marc Bergevin traded him to the Buffalo Sabres for a mere third-round draft pick, instead of potentially losing him for nothing. It was the right decision, for a multitude of reasons.
For starters, the Golden Knights ended up selecting a separate left-handed Canadiens defenseman in Alexei Emelin, only to eventually trade him for a separate third-round pick (in 2019) to the Nashville Predators. So, Bergevin technically did well, getting what he did for the guy. Had Beaulieu been available, it’s very much possible the Knights would have taken him instead. Furthermore, the pick the Canadiens got ended up being incredibly valuable in theory. Sure, they used it on Scott Walford at No. 68, who never played an NHL game. However, there were worthwhile alternatives still available in the general vicinity, including eventual-Habs-defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic, who was taken by the Winnipeg Jets at No. 74, and goalie Stuart Skinner, who was taken by the Edmonton Oilers at No. 78.
Beaulieu Not Actually a Draft Bust
Considering Beaulieu would never score more than 12 points in a season again, it’s safe to say Bergevin was right to cut bait when he did and not protect him. And, even though he didn’t really work out, then-GM Pierre Gauthier wasn’t exactly wrong to pick him way back when. Ultimately, 2011 was a weak draft class. If the Canadiens had designs on picking a left-handed defenseman, the only ones left available at the time (in Round 1) were Oscar Klefbom (No. 19 by the Oilers), Joe Morrow (No. 23 by the Pittsburgh Penguins) and Stuart Percy (No. 25 by the Toronto Maple Leafs). Pickings were slim past that point too.
Klefbom would have been intriguing, as a player who complemented the high-flying Oilers well. In 2016-17, in the lead-up to the Expansion Draft and Connor McDavid’s second season in the NHL, he broke out to score a career-high 12 goals and 38 points. Injuries cut his career short, to the point he officially retired at Age 31, having last played at 26. Maybe, had the Canadiens drafted him instead, he wouldn’t have run into the same issues. That’s a huge “if” though, considering the chronic nature of his injuries. He played a full season just once. And, considering Beaulieu and Klefbom each broke out to hit their career highs the same 2016-17 season, there are no guarantees Bergevin would have protected him when he didn’t Beaulieu. You’d like to think he might have, but Bergevin did have a tendency to undervalue offensively capable defensemen who were prone to defensive mistakes.
Beaulieu sometimes gets an unjustified bad reputation himself, looking past his run-in with the law. That’s so far in the past, it really only serves as a way to set the stage for what was intended to be a piece to acknowledge his career as a whole and that he wasn’t the bust people make him out to be. For Beaulieu to be a legitimate bust, the Canadiens would have had to miss out on someone significantly superior by picking him instead. There really wasn’t anyone else, which is more so a reflection of the quality of the draft class or lack thereof than his shortcomings. He still played 471 NHL games, which amounts to a success story, if you look at it the right way.
Despite a long series of failed first picks for the organization — none of them between 2006 and 2018 went on to enjoy lasting success with the Canadiens — Beaulieu developed into a relatively solid NHLer. He may not fit into the same category as a Ryan McDonagh (2007) or Mikhail Sergachev (2016), two other left-handed defensemen the Habs should have held onto based on how they panned out into star players, but he could have turned into a serviceable long-time Hab if things had gone differently. That’s not really as much up for debate as much as it is a foregone conclusion based on how the rest of his career played out. He was a serviceable NHLer, who just couldn’t quite live up to his potential. He still ended up living the dream.
