PITTSBURGH -- Midway through the 2013-14 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season, and years before he'd become an unlikely Stanley Cup playoffs hero for the Nashville Predators, Frederick Gaudreau was at a career crossroads.
The forward was 20 and nearing the end of his junior eligibility when he was traded to the Drumondville Voltigeurs. Gaudreau had played a marginal role with the Shawinigan Cataractes team that won the Memorial Cup in 2012. With mere months remaining in his junior career, Gaudreau was little more than an underused, overlooked player facing hockey mortality.
Gaudreau didn't even have an agent and had been completely passed over in both the Quebec junior and NHL drafts.