BOSTON — It was an almost startling admission.
Maybe, Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said, it wasn’t the right choice. Maybe Dean Letourneau 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.
Maybe it all would have been different.
Maybe.
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’s 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.
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’s not a liability.
“I got to develop key areas of my game that some people might have thought were my weaknesses,” Letourneau said. “I think being able to utilize that going into next year, I’ll 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’m able to prove out there on the ice.”
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’t 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.
“Significant growing pains,” said Sweeney, the Bruins general manager. “We 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.
“Deep down, is he better off for it? Well, we’ll see this year because I think that he’s been tested mentally and physically and he’s putting in work now that he has an understanding of how much work it requires to play at that level and be successful.”
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.
It just didn’t quite happen that way.
“That’s not necessarily a negative,” Sweeney said. “It’s just that when players have had the success and put up the points their entire career and then all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Whoa, this is a lot harder,’ it’s deflating to a degree.
“But talking through it, he’ll be fine. He’ll earn his opportunity back and work his way up the depth chart and start to produce like he has, so I don’t look at it as a setback, I just look at it like a reality slap in a lot of ways.”
Letourneau turned to his parents, who talked to him about mental health, about staying positive. As he put it, “Like, the more negative you get is just going to weigh you down even more. So you’ve just got to stay positive, kind of clear your mindset. Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, every day is a new day.”
It still impacted him, of course, the chances at the Beanpot tournament that didn’t fall, the crossbars, the posts, that zero on the stat line.
But those around him were continually impressed with how he handled it, how he maintained his equanimity despite everything.
“The way it worked out, it was hard, but his attitude and his understanding of the process that he has to go through was outstanding,” BC coach Greg Brown said. “He 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.”
They saw in the way he handled what BC and the Bruins were preaching, in the way he’s approaching the upcoming season. As Boston director of player development Adam McQuaid said, “He 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.”
They saw how he understood nothing would be handed to him.
It wasn’t. it won’t be.
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.
Brown pointed out taller players can often take longer to adjust, to find their way in the game. As he put it, “Having that size at a young age is not an advantage.”
Still, there were glimmers.
“He showed, as the year went on, that he has some real abilities,” Brown said. “It just is going to take time.
“He 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’s when having that extra size really comes in handy.”
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’s development camp. That staff has been pleased with what they’ve seen, with testing that showed he was stronger and faster and better conditioned.
He is listening. He is working. He is trying.
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.
“I’m super excited for next season,” Letourneau said. “I’m ready to show people how I normally play and I’m ready to hopefully put up some numbers this year and have a big step offensively.”
They’re all just hoping that the zero is erased as quickly as possible, for Letourneau’s sake, more than anyone’s.
“I think,” Brown said, “that would allow him to breathe a lot easier.”
