Mavrik Bourque is a Canadian center for the Nashville Predators who was the most valuable player in the American Hockey League before he established himself in the NHL. The question most often asked about Mavrik Bourque is whether he is related to Ray Bourque.
| Fast facts: Mavrik Bourque | |
|---|---|
| Current team | Nashville Predators |
| Position | Center. He has spent much of his NHL time on the right wing |
| Shoots | Right |
| Born | 8 January 2002, Plessisville, Quebec |
| Height / weight | 5-foot-11, 187 lbs per the NHL. |
| Drafted | 2020, first round, 30th overall, Dallas Stars |
| Contract status | Six years at $5.5 million a season, signed 4 July 2026, unrestricted free agent in 2032 |
| Previous clubs | Dallas Stars, Texas Stars, Shawinigan Cataractes, Trois-Rivieres Estacades |
Is Mavrik Bourque related to Ray Bourque?
Mavrik Bourque has never addressed it himself in any interview we could find. What is documented is this. His father is Serge Bourque and his mother is Sylvie Cote, and the family runs a dairy farm in Plessisville, in central Quebec, where his father is the seventh generation to work it. Ray Bourque was born in Saint-Laurent on the island of Montreal and has three children: Chris, Ryan, and Melissa. Chris played 51 NHL games and Ryan one.
The surname is common enough in Quebec hockey that the confusion has history. Gabriel Bourque, who played five seasons for the Predators, is not related to Rene Bourque, which a Denver newspaper once had to spell out in a headline.
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What are Mavrik Bourque’s career stats?
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | P | PIM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | Shawinigan Cataractes | QMJHL | 64 | 25 | 29 | 54 | 30 |
| 2019-20 | Shawinigan Cataractes | QMJHL | 49 | 29 | 42 | 71 | 30 |
| 2020-21 | Shawinigan Cataractes | QMJHL | 28 | 19 | 24 | 43 | 36 |
| 2020-21 | Texas Stars | AHL | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 0 |
| 2021-22 | Shawinigan Cataractes | QMJHL | 31 | 20 | 48 | 68 | 30 |
| 2022-23 | Texas Stars | AHL | 70 | 20 | 27 | 47 | 18 |
| 2023-24 | Texas Stars | AHL | 71 | 26 | 51 | 77 | 32 |
| 2023-24 | Dallas Stars | NHL | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024-25 | Dallas Stars | NHL | 73 | 11 | 14 | 25 | 8 |
| 2025-26 | Dallas Stars | NHL | 82 | 20 | 21 | 41 | 22 |
Completed seasons only.
Mavrik Bourque has scored more points in one AHL season than in his first three NHL seasons combined. The AHL season brought 77 points in 71 games. Those three NHL seasons brought 66 points in 156 games, and 41 of them came in the last one, which was comfortably his best.
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Why did the Stars trade Mavrik Bourque?
Money, and the Stars said so without hedging. Dallas sent Bourque and defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin to Nashville on 1 July 2026, the first day of free agency, for a 2027 second-round pick and a 2028 third-rounder. Bourque was a restricted free agent due to a raise.
“We love Mavrik. Good player for us,” general manager Jim Nill said the same day. “His game’s really come along. MVP of the American League, and his game got better and better.” Then the actual reason: “Unfortunately, he’s a casualty of the cap world. You have to be cap compliant, and those decisions have to be made.” Nill said Bourque had bet on himself, and the 41-point season that followed priced him out of Dallas.
What did Mavrik Bourque win in the AHL?
Both of the league’s biggest individual awards in the same season, 2023-24: the Les Cunningham Award as most valuable player, voted by coaches, players and media, and the John B. Sollenberger Trophy as leading scorer.
He also led the league with 256 shots, a Texas club record, and was second in assists. He is one of two players in the club’s history to win the Cunningham, and the first in the league since 2016-17 to take the scoring title and the MVP award together.
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What did Mavrik Bourque do in junior?
He captained Shawinigan Cataractes to the club’s first Quebec league title, and he was the best player in the playoffs. Bourque had 25 points in 16 playoff games in 2021-22, a club record, scored in four of the five final games against Charlottetown and won the Guy Lafleur Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player, the first Cataractes player ever to get it.
He had been captain since he was eighteen. Canada cut him from its World Junior team on the final day of the selection camp in December 2020. In French, he told a Mauricie newspaper afterward that he had believed in it right up to the last day, and that deep down he knew he had earned his place.
Is Mavrik Bourque a center?
He is listed there, Nashville traded for him to play there, and Dallas largely did not use him there. That gap is why Nashville was willing to pay what Dallas would not.
Nashville was explicit about the plan. “We believe he can play and be a good player in the middle of the ice,” said Chris MacFarland, the club’s general manager and head of hockey operations, who added that Nashville intended to give him every shot at playing in the middle.
Bourque framed it the same way, and he put the obligation on himself. “I believe I’m a better player down the middle, so I know what I’ve got to work on to be a good center in the NHL,” he said. “When they traded for me, they told me what kind of role I was going to get. I’ve got to show up and be ready for that role, and I’ve got to deliver.”
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What is Mavrik Bourque’s contract?
Six years and $33 million, signed on 4 July 2026, three days after the trade. The cap hit is $5.5 million a season through 2031-32, and the salary rises from $4.5 million in the first two years to $6.5 million in the last.
Did Mavrik Bourque grow up on a dairy farm?
He did, and he nearly stayed. The farm has been in the family for seven generations, and his younger brother was drafted by the Cataractes and chose the farm and a joinery diploma instead.
Bourque has said that until he was fourteen he wanted to take over the farm more than he wanted to play hockey, and that without hockey he would probably be settled there with his father. He has also drawn the line between the two himself: the discipline is the same, because the cows have to be milked whether you feel like it or not, and skipping the gym in the morning would feel like the same kind of failure.
His father has described a boy who could not be worn out on the tractor and sat beside him in the cab all day.
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