If the Edmonton Oilers wind up successful in their attempts to court Bruce Cassidy for their now-vacant head coaching position, there might be one player who isn’t too happy to see his arrival.

Trent Frederic.

It’s easy to assume that Frederic would be happy, given he played his first 100-odd NHL games under his tutelage en route to his breakout in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Cassidy has shown an ability to maximize his rosters, but when it comes to the early days of the pair’s relationship, it was far from the case.

In fact, the season after the Bruins replaced Cassidy with Jim Montgomery, Frederic said he wouldn’t have been able to score the 17 goals and 31 points he did in 2022-23.

“No. No,” Frederic told The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa in April 2023. “If we’d kept the same coach, I think it would be the same thing if I’m being dead honest.”

In the Bruins’ seven-game series against the Hurricanes in the 2021 playoffs that resulted in a loss, Frederic only played four games, averaging a meagre 8:41 per night, never playing more than 11 minutes. Games 3 through 5 saw him in the press box, only to play a team-low 7:55 in the third period.

“I got benched all the time,” he said. “It kind of all blends together. I just remember a shitty feeling.”

The Bruins had lofty goals for Frederic. They saw him as someone who could play higher up in the lineup instead of being a fourth-liner, and eventually take some of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci’s shifts, Shinzawa detailed. They hoped Montgomery was the man to do it.

It wasn’t pretty early. Frederic had an unremarkable training camp and was a healthy scratch in Game 1 of their 2023-24 season opener against the Washington Capitals.

“He said he didn’t have the greatest camp and was not surprised he wasn’t starting the year,” Montgomery told Shinzawa. “But I give him credit for how he’s worked at the pace of his game and his transition. When he’s transitioning from offence to defence right away and vice versa, he jumps out at you about how well he’s playing. In the game, when he’s been tired and he hasn’t been on top of his game, that’s the areas of his transitions where he’s a little late on things. That’s probably true for anyone. But it’s very noticeable to us coaches about his game.

“We always talk about him and first three strides each direction toward each net. After that, you’ve got a really good hockey player. Really good hockey player, as he’s blossomed into.”

Frederic couldn’t say enough good things about Montgomery in helping him have the season he had in 2022-23.

“He’s been huge for me,” said Frederic. “Last year to this year, getting my confidence and letting me play. He’s just a good person to be around the rink. He makes it fun to come in here and getting that love for hockey. He’s also just a good hockey mind. I feel like he sees stuff. Even if you try and make a play, he might encourage it if it doesn’t work.”

If you look at what Trent Frederic’s done since he arrived in Edmonton, you find a similar story.

Aspirations of him playing high in the Oilers’ lineup ahead of this season, which saw him start on the top line alongside Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The only problem was the experiment lasted all of two games. Frederic never got off the ground floor, and by November, he had to take a fight with Mathieu Olivier amid the noise of his struggles.

A month later, Kris Knoblauch would reveal Frederic was still feeling the lingering effects of a high-ankle sprain, when he got healthy-scratched last December, bringing forth confusion about why he started in the lineup so high. It wasn’t until the Oilers returned from the Olympic break did Frederic seem to start to find his game, only to get banged up against the Florida Panthers, forcing him out of the lineup for five games.

So much for building some momentum.

He struggled through the final seven regular-season games, the first four games of the playoffs, and found himself healthy scratched for Games 5 and 6 of the Oilers’ first-round loss to the Anaheim Ducks. $3.85 million in the press box during the most important games of the year.

Sound familiar?

To suggest Cassidy would be able to suddenly flip Frederic’s game and turn him into the player he was, who scored 38 goals and 77 points in 181 games under Montgomery, would be nothing but thinking optimistically, and quite frankly, unrealistically. After Montgomery was fired 20 games into the 2024-25 season, Frederic reverted back to the struggling player he was under Cassidy. He would score just five goals and nine points in 37 games under Joe Sacco, before being traded to the Oilers. A 0.43 point per game rate would dip to a 0.24 point per game rate.

In Edmonton, playoffs and regular season included, Frederic has played 101 games, scoring five goals and 11 points.

It’s about as bleak as can be, and next season will mark year two of Frederic’s eight-year deal that still has $26.95 million left to pay out with three years of a no-movement clause.

Whether it’s Cassidy or someone else, finding a way to get the most out of Frederic will be one of the top priorities. Maybe someone can follow Montgomery’s playbook.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.