Zachary Bolduc felt the nerves at peak maximum as he was walking through the tunnel knowing the moment had arrived.
The 17th pick in the 2021 NHL Draft knew he'd be skating out onto the Enterprise Center ice for the pregame warmup ahead of a matchup against the New York Islanders on Thursday alone, and he had to just soak it all in.
"I was excited, I was stressed, I was proud," Bolduc said Friday. "A lot of emotion.
"That stress after my first shift was gone. I'm pretty happy to have the chance to play that game yesterday and really looking forward to the next game."
Bolduc, 20, didn't make an immediate impact on the scoresheet for the Blues in their 4-0 win, but he finally got a taste of life in the NHL after being recalled from Springfield of the American Hockey League on Wednesday.
"I think I did pretty well," Bolduc said. "With at the excitement and stress that game brought to me, so I'm pretty happy with the way I played. I'm lucky I played with 'Schenner' and 'Neighbs'. They made my job a lot easier. It's fun to put that one in the back pack and look forward."
Bolduc logged 9:57 ice time and had one shot on goal and even was able to get 1:35 of power-play time at the end of the game to get his feet wet even more.
It was a tough game to gauge for him with the two teams playing specialty teams for much of the game, a surprise since they are two of the least-penalized teams in the NHL.
"Both teams got five penalties, so it was hard to get some rhythm through that," Bolduc said. 'But I think I did a good job. I kept myself in the game. I made a few turnovers, but all in all, I think I did well my first game."
Blues interim coach Drew Banister even said as much in the postgame that Bolduc had to sit for longer stretches because of the special teams play.
"Yeah, that was a hard game for him to play in," Bannister said. "I think we had 10 penalties over both teams. But I thought he showed a lot of maturity. It's a tough game to play in for a young player.
"It's hard to understand when you're a young player playing in your first NHL game. It's an emotional game and there's a lot of work that goes into getting to this point, being able to step on the ice with other National Hockey League players and a lot of sacrifice by families. So it's an emotional game and I thought he did a real good job to keep himself engaged in the game and us trying to find him some ice time to reward him for that. But I thought overall, he played very well."
Bolduc was put in situations where he was playing with Brayden Schenn and Jake Neighbours, along with Kevin Hayes and Brandon Saad.
"It was a weird game, hard game just with penalties and the flow and stuff like that, but he worked hard," Schenn said. "You can tell he was excited out there. There's definitely something there. He's big, he's got skill, he's got poise. One game and keep on working. One thing about him is he's very receptive, willing to learn and just loves being around the guys.
"I think the biggest thing is pace, moving your feet, especially when he has speed and he's able to score goals, it's that next level of trying to find the openings. If you watch the top-end scorers in the league, they're always moving their feet or trying to find holes. He has the ability to be that one guy one day."
And by being put in right situations, it meant offensive zone draws.
"Drew told me that he was going to put me in good situations," Bolduc said. "I'm pretty lucky and have trust in my coach. It was pretty awesome.
"The guys are always at the right place at the right time. They're faster, smarter. It's harder, but it's easier at the same time, so it's going to be fun to build from that game. The pressure is coming quicker, you've got to shoot quicker, you've got to do everything faster. It was a good test and I'm really looking forward to the second game tomorrow."
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