Dean Letourneau<\/a> should have gone back to the United States Hockey League, an intermediate step before jumping full force into college hockey at Boston College. Maybe Letourneau would have been better off, would have developed more, would have learned to use the towering body that is both one of his best assets and, perhaps, the thing holding him back.<\/p>\nMaybe it all would have been different.<\/p>\n
Maybe.<\/p>\n
But the 19-year-old forward, taken as a surprise pick by the Bruins with the No. 25 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, did go to Boston College last season, coming from Canadian prep school at St. Andrew\u2019s College, heading into the teeth of NCAA hockey where he struggled to find his place and his footing, where he played 36 of 37 games for a team ranked No. 1 for much of the season, but scored not a single goal.<\/p>\n
This season, he is aiming to change all that, to develop his physicality and his play away from the puck, to win more battles and face-offs, to improve his defense and ensure he\u2019s not a liability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to develop key areas of my game that some people might have thought were my weaknesses,\u201d Letourneau said. \u201cI think being able to utilize that going into next year, I\u2019ll just be able to take off offensively having that background behind me. So then people will be able to start to see my true capabilities and what I\u2019m able to prove out there on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
It all started when center Will Smith left Boston College for the San Jose Sharks, which opened a spot for Letourneau. He took it, with the understanding of how big a jump it would be. That didn\u2019t make it any easier when his season went the way it did, when he finished with no goals and three assists in those 36 games, the zero glaring for a first-round draft pick, especially for someone who had 127 points (61 goals, 66 assists) in 56 games for the St. Andrew’s under-18 team in 2023-24, plus 25 more (14 goals, 11 assists) in 14 games for St. Andrew’s in the Prep Hockey Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificant growing pains,\u201d said Sweeney, the Bruins general manager. \u201cWe talked a little bit about what would be the best place in terms of Dean and in hindsight I think we all would have agreed that maybe another year of the USHL (Letourneau played two games with Sioux Falls in 2023-24), a full year of the USHL, would have been the best path.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep down, is he better off for it? Well, we\u2019ll see this year because I think that he\u2019s been tested mentally and physically and he\u2019s putting in work now that he has an understanding of how much work it requires to play at that level and be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not that the step was much bigger than Letourneau himself anticipated. It was exactly as big. The hope was that by around Christmas he might have settled in, he might have gotten back to the game that had been so enticing to observers, that he might have gotten himself up to speed on the pace.<\/p>\n
It just didn\u2019t quite happen that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not necessarily a negative,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cIt\u2019s just that when players have had the success and put up the points their entire career and then all of a sudden they\u2019re like, ‘Whoa, this is a lot harder,’ it\u2019s deflating to a degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut talking through it, he\u2019ll be fine. He\u2019ll earn his opportunity back and work his way up the depth chart and start to produce like he has, so I don\u2019t look at it as a setback, I just look at it like a reality slap in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Letourneau turned to his parents, who talked to him about mental health, about staying positive. As he put it, \u201cLike, the more negative you get is just going to weigh you down even more. So you\u2019ve just got to stay positive, kind of clear your mindset. Whether it\u2019s a good day or a bad day, every day is a new day.\u201d<\/p>\n
It still impacted him, of course, the chances at the Beanpot tournament that didn\u2019t fall, the crossbars, the posts, that zero on the stat line.<\/p>\n
But those around him were continually impressed with how he handled it, how he maintained his equanimity despite everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it worked out, it was hard, but his attitude and his understanding of the process that he has to go through was outstanding,\u201d BC coach Greg Brown said. \u201cHe kept his spirits up, he kept his intensity level up, his frustration never took over and affected both the way he was on and off the ice, with attitude. He just kept playing and working to play the right way, which speaks volumes to his character.\u201d<\/p>\n
They saw in the way he handled what BC and the Bruins were preaching, in the way he\u2019s approaching the upcoming season. As Boston director of player development Adam McQuaid said, \u201cHe took that in stride, but yet still was like, ‘I still want to do more, I still want to impact more, I believe I can be more.’ So those are all positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n
They saw how he understood nothing would be handed to him.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t. it won\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
The most enticing part about Letourneau, his size, is also something he needs to understand how to handle, to use his 6-foot-7 frame and transition his game to more of a traditional power forward role, putting in the reps to be able to hold on to pucks longer, to shield opponents off, putting in the work in the weight room to grow into the body he has, finding confidence in his strength.<\/p>\n
Brown pointed out taller players can often take longer to adjust, to find their way in the game. As he put it, \u201cHaving that size at a young age is not an advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, there were glimmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe showed, as the year went on, that he has some real abilities,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt just is going to take time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did show signs of the power hockey player that he will become. There were some days — and it was probably more for us to see in practice — where he really was adjusting and learning to use his size and protect pucks and drive to the inside, when he gets body position on a defender. That\u2019s when having that extra size really comes in handy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Letourneau spent the first part of his summer in Boston, starting with two weeks at BC before shifting to Warrior Ice Arena for three weeks with the Bruins staff ahead of the team\u2019s development camp. That staff has been pleased with what they\u2019ve seen, with testing that showed he was stronger and faster and better conditioned.<\/p>\n
He is listening. He is working. He is trying.<\/p>\n
He is eager to get back to BC, to get back on the ice, to demonstrate what he can do, who he is, who he can be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super excited for next season,\u201d Letourneau said. \u201cI\u2019m ready to show people how I normally play and I\u2019m ready to hopefully put up some numbers this year and have a big step offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re all just hoping that the zero is erased as quickly as possible, for Letourneau\u2019s sake, more than anyone\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think,\u201d Brown said, \u201cthat would allow him to breathe a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON — It was an almost startling admission. Maybe, Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said, it wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-42500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}