Interestingly candid insight from Bruins management about 2024 first-round pick Dean Letourneau during discussions this week about the draft, recent draft picks and the differing development paths for each player.
The 19-year-old boldly predicted during NHL Draft weekend a year ago that he would only be at Boston College for a couple of years before jumping to the NHL, and then found out just how big the jump was from Canadian prep school hockey to the NCAA world. Letourneau struggled as a true freshman at the Heights against elevated competition and older, stronger and faster opponents and finished with just three assists (but did score in an exhibition game against the USNTDP kids) and a plus-6 in 36 games.
Dean Letourneau scores his first goal as an Eagle to put BC up 4-0 pic.twitter.com/Go8HNJFU5C
— Bear With Me (@BearWithMe_Pod) October 20, 2024
Letourneau was relegated to bottom-6 duty and limited minutes amidst a loaded Eagles lineup last season, but none of this was a shock to the Bruins after he was fast-tracked into the Boston College lineup following the early exit from Will Smith signing with the San Jose Sharks.
“[There were] significant growing pains [while he was] making a very big jump from the level of hockey he was [at] the year before, to the demands of college," said Don Sweeney, when speaking with the media ahead of the NHL Draft. "There's a little uniqueness there with Will Smith leaving early to go to the NHL, and we talked a little bit about what would be the best place in terms of Dean. In hindsight, I think we all would have agreed that maybe another year of the USHL, a full year of the USHL would have been the best path. Physically he was able to play at the college level, and again, that opportunity presented in a bit of a unique fashion. I think everybody was sort of with the understanding that, hey, physically, he was ready to do it.
“Now, whether or not you can carry that over in the highest level, because that's what the expectations at [Boston College] are, and be successful from a point production standpoint, you know…that's a leap. 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. That's not necessarily a negative. It's just that when players have had the success and put up the points their entire careers, and all of a sudden they're like, ‘Hold on, this is a lot harder’…it's deflating to a degree. But talking through [Letourneau] with it, he'll be fine. He'll earn his opportunity back, work his way up the depth chart and start to produce like he has. I don't look at as a setback, I just look at it like a reality slap in a lot of ways.”
There might not have been as much scrutiny on Letourneau at Boston College if the Bruins had been cranking out high-end prospects with their first-round picks over the last decade, but that has unfortunately not been the case.
Certainly, he could skate at the high pace of Hockey East, and physically, he looked more comfortable as the college hockey season wore on, but it was going to be difficult for him to make a significant impact. Honestly anybody with good hockey instincts could have seen this at Bruins development camp last summer, where he was far from the best player and looked like a teenager making a big step up in competition.
Some have already tossed around the “bust” word with Letourneau, but that is a long way away from being determined in the best of circumstances. Bruins talent evaluators always viewed the 6-foot-6 center as a long-range project as a big, skilled pivot that could be something special as he develops man strength into his early 20s and knew there were some raw elements to his game that were going to need development.
The tools are absolutely there and the first wave of adversity has been reached, and now it’s up to the talented youngster to show the patience and work ethic needed to push through for an Eagles team that will need a better Letourneau next season.
The good news is that Boston College is the perfect setting for Letourneau to grow and develop into the best hockey player he can be, but the “reality slap” was probably the player himself learning that it might be more than a couple of years of college hockey before he’s primed and ready for the next step.
ONE TIMERS
• Some really interesting tidbits about the Bruins' draft picks on the second day of the NHL Draft on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps the most fascinating was USNTDP center Will Moore selected by the B’s in the second round (51st overall), who is also on his way to Boston College next season with fellow Bruins prospects Letourneau, James Hagens, Oskar Jellvik and Andre Gasseau.
Moore is a trained pianist who played Carnegie Hall as a 10-year-old, grew up in Toronto as the son of a father who’s a US citizen and a mom who’s a native of Brazil, and is the first hockey player in his family. The 6-foot-3, 181-pounder was a prolific scorer for the USNTDP Under-18 team this past season and has the kind of big frame where he’s going to be able to add tons of size and strength in his college years.
The Boston Bruins select Will Moore 51st overall! pic.twitter.com/FvSYh1faHv
— Elite Prospects (@eliteprospects) June 28, 2025
Third-rounder Cooper Simpson led all Minnesota high school players in goals last season (49) in 38 games and then ripped up the USHL with seven goals in nine games for the Tri-City Storm at the end of the year after the high school season was over. Simpson is slated to play for North Dakota next season and looks like the kind of shooting-and-scoring machine that the Bruins haven’t taken fliers on enough in drafts over the last 10-15 years.
Yup, definitely a shooter https://t.co/aPKsrkHhxA
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) June 28, 2025
Bruins scouting director Ryan Nadeau said having more draft picks allowed Boston to “take more swings” at players with higher offensive ceilings, and certainly the best way to get those players is by having a top-10 first round pick that was able to land them an electric offensive talent in Hagens.
“I think having more picks, and having some higher picks, allowed us to probably look at some players with more offensive ability and upside,” said Nadeau. “Sometimes in the area where we tend to be picking, we didn’t have those players available. Or some of those players that were there had risks associated sometimes with that player.
Whether they’re undersized, whether they’re physically underdeveloped, or whether there’s just a real major lack of detail to their game, or whether there’s other players at that spot where you really appreciate their attention to detail, their heaviness, their hardness…we didn’t shy away from any of that. I just think we ended up in a spot this year where we could really take some things at some higher upside offensive players that maybe in the past we haven’t had as many swings on that kind of player.”
With multiple first round picks next season as well, this could be a welcome trend for Bruins drafts over these years that could go a long way toward replenishing a draft-and-development system that needed a boost.
• Some minor signings of restricted free agents for the Black and Gold on Sunday as Russian center Marat Khusnutdinov signed a two-year contract with an AAV under $1 million ($925,000 to be exact) for a fast, skilled player that’s expected to be a bottom-6 fixture next season and defenseman Michael Callahan signed a one-year, two-way deal for $775,000 that could be an excellent value if he can come in and win the seventh defensemen spot on the NHL roster out of camp after being Providence’s best blueliner down the stretch last season.
Great value for both as it remains to be seen if other RFAs like Jakub Lauko, Johnny Beecher, Oliver Wahlstrom, John Farinacci and Georgii Merkulov are going to be tendered offers ahead of the July 1 free agency period.
Don Sweeney did confirm that the Bruins are still discussing a contract with Henri Jokiharju after the Finnish defenseman played well after being traded to Boston from Buffalo and served as a steady right-handed partner for Nikita Zadorov that brought out the best in the Russian defenseman.
