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Meet the B's class of '24; Free agent updates |
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Ty Anderson
 Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • RSS
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The NHL Draft? Or as I know it, the weekend where the majority of Bruins and NHL fans are thrilled or start flipping tables about players we were, for the most part, collectively unaware of last week.
(For real though, quick shoutout to the people who actually do the draft homework all year long. Your commitment to the craft is incredible, and speaking personally, my mind melts at the thought of trying to follow 20 leagues and LiveBarn feeds at the same time. So I hope you shined and got everything you wanted out of this weekend. You are the true savants of the industry, and your service is noted.)
For the Bruins, the 2024 NHL Draft brought about a change from recent drafts, with the Bruins back in the first round for the first time in three years.
The pick in Boston’s possession was their own, though it took a 15-month detour through Detroit and then Ottawa, and remained in Boston’s possession through the first night of the NHL Draft.
Consider it yet another reminder that the Bruins are no longer the ‘win-now, cash every pick in for immediate help’ club they were during the final years of the Chara-Bergeron-Krejci era of Black and Gold hockey.
Boston’s move for that pick also gave them four picks in total in this year’s draft, and kept the team out of what would’ve been their smallest draft class since 1968, back when the NHL Draft was only three rounds in total.
But let’s take a closer look at the four newest members of the B’s organization...
First round (No. 25 overall): Dean Letourneau
With their first pick of the 2024 NHL Draft, the Bruins went for the boom-or-bust potential of 6-foot-7 center prospect Dean Letourneau. An absolute specimen given his size and skating ability for a player so large, Letourneau is coming off a season that featured 61 goals and 127 points in 56 games for St. Andrew’s College (prep).
“What stood out, obviously, is the frame of the player and his skillset, to tell you the truth,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said of Letourneau. “He moves really well at that size, very, very good hands, elite shot.”
The obvious ‘knock’ against Letourneau is the fact that he played his season playing prep and not in the higher competition of the CHL, or even the USHL beyond a two-game sample with Sioux Falls to end the year. Letourneau himself doesn’t agree with that assessment of his team and league, noting that he was able to play in all situations with St. Andrew’s College, and that his team played U-20 teams from around the world over the course of the year.
Sweeney called Letourneau’s next step at Boston College a ‘big’ one in terms of the competition and the level that’ll be required out of him, but this was clearly the Bruins’ guy at No. 25 as the board broke late in the first. So much so that the Bruins had legitimate thoughts of trading back from No. 25 overfall had Letourneau not been there for them.
So, what’s next?
“Get bigger and get stronger, [and] maintain my speed,” Letourneau, who again stands at 6-foot-7 and has an absolutely gigantic wingspan, said of his goals. “I want to play that bigger boy’s game where I’m using my size more. I’m still learning how to do that, and something I’m gonna work on this offseason.”
Letourneau himself sees himself spending two years at Boston College (it’s worth noting that he’s going to BC a year early following the departure of Sharks prospect Will Smith from the Eagles’ program) before turning pro, but patience will ultimately have to be the name of the game when it comes to a prospect as tantalizing as Letourneau.
Should he hit his ceiling, Letourneau projects to be a Tage Thompson-esque presence as a big man who can play the middle of the ice, skate well, and score with the best of ’em.
Fourth round (No. 110 overall): Elliott Groenewold
Sitting out the second and third rounds of this year’s draft, the Bruins actually decided to make a trade-up to ensure that they were able to Elliott Groenewold with the No. 110 overall pick.
A 6-foot-2 blue liner, the Vermont-born Groenewold posted five goals and 16 points, along with a minus-1 rating and 77 minutes in penalties, in 57 games for USHL Cedar Rapids in 2023-24. Groenewold’s season was also enough to earn him USHL All-Rookie Second Team honors, with most scouting reports projecting him as a solid defense-first defender who’s capable of using his frame and physicality to get his desired results.
The Bruins are also impressed with Groenewold’s status as a ‘fast riser’ of sorts from a program standpoint.
“Groenewold has had a huge jump from Bishop’s College in Quebec. You know, Vermont kid who played there quickly, [had a] quick transition to the USHL and Cedar Rapids and then right to Quinnipiac next year,” Bruins director of amateur scouting Ryan Nadeau acknowledged. “Like that’s a pretty quick timeline.”
Groenewold said that he tries to model his game after Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm as a two-way defenseman who can impact the game at both ends of the ice.
“It’s always good when you model your game after a real solid NHL player like that,” Nadeau said of Groenewold’s comparison to Lindholm. “He’s a Bruins fan, so he grows up and he’s watching our team play a lot. Certainly for him, it’s a combination of a lot of different things that he may have somewhat in common with a Lindholm and a Carlo type. He’s got a frame, he’s got good feet. He likes to play, likes to impact, he likes to get up the ice. He can play an aggressive style. Puck play’s pretty good. He was used at times on the power play this year in Cedar.
“It’s a kid that we just really like his game. Good human, and we’re just really excited to add him.”
Fifth round (No. 154 overall): Jonathan Morello
Back on the clock in round five, the Bruins decided to go with a speed demon, with OJHL forward Jonathan Morello brought into the fold after a breakout year with the St. Michael’s Buzzers.
On the board with 25 goals and 57 points in 50 games for the Buzzers during the regular season, the 17-year-old Morello exploded in the postseason, with 12 goals and 21 points in 11 postseason tilts. Morello, who stands at 6-foot-3, also posted one goal and six points in six games for Canada East at the World Junior A Challenge, and won the fastest skater competition at the OJHL All-Star festivities.
While the OJHL isn’t the OHL, and similarly to Letourneau and his plans, the Bruins appear to be more than comfortable with Morello’s current development path, with the lefty-shooting forward slated to spend next year in the USHL with Dubuque before jumping to the NCAA game with Clarkson University in 2025.
“He’s going to be in Dubuque this year and is committed to Clarkson. I think Dubuque has done a good job. They’ve had some turnover lately that’s happening with their staff, but that’s a path that we believe in,” Nadeau said of Morello’s future plans. “We’ve obviously done it before with other guys. I think the USHL is a really good development league, and then with his college plans, it works pretty well.”
Sixth round (No. 186 overall): Loke Johansson
I gotta tell you, finding any sort of footage on sixth-round pick Loke Johansson has been impossible. You search his name on YouTube and you just get about 25 profiles of men named Loke Johansson. To be this much of a mystery in the year 2024 is actually incredible, and I have to respect the hell out of it. But this is a player that’s certainly familiar to the Bruins, with top European scouts P.J. Axelsson and Victor Nybladh getting multiple viewings of him.
In fact, Johansson played right in the Stockholm-based Nybladh’s backyard as a member of AIK.
“We like his physicality, [he] closes down space pretty well,” Nadeau said of Johansson. “You know, like any kid you’re picking late, there’s a bit of development here left. But, you know, we have a development staff that we really believe in [with] their ability to get the most out of players. You know, we’ve seen enough with, with puck moving to think that this kid handles the puck fine. We really appreciate the grit and the hardness in his defending.”
B's free-agent updates
- The writing appears to be on the wall for a split between the Bruins and winger Jake DeBrusk. That's been the case for a long time now (DeBrusk was incredibly disappointed that an extension was not hammered out during the season, which felt telling in its own right), but Sweeney basically confirmed as much before the NHL Draft, saying that the expectation is that DeBrusk will hit the open market with the sides not having talks in quite some time. I know that some rumors out there have connected DeBrusk to the Maple Leafs, but it really feels like DeBrusk is due to go back closer to home, especially with the way teams like the Canucks and Flames have managed their cap and positioned themselves to add some help on the wings.
- The Elias Lindholm rumors will not go away. It's believed that the Bruins will make a significant push for the two-way center when things open up on Monday. Chandler Stephenson and Sean Monahan are two other names to watch with the Bruins absolutely, 100 percent determined to make what they view as a considerable move at center.
- Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman expects that the Bruins will be in on Nikita Zadorov. There's no denying that the 29-year-old Zadorov is an electric talent for a variety of reasons, but if $5 million per year wasn't enough to get him to re-sign in Vancouver, I'm not sure it's in the Bruins' best interest to get in a bidding war for him on July 1. It really does feel like Boston's focus has to be on adding more legitimate scoring help, and that their play on the left side of their defense has to come with more 'value' in mind.
- Random predictions for some of the other notable B's free agents: Pat Maroon returns to Tampa, Matt Grzelcyk lands in Pittsburgh, and James van Riemsdyk ends up with the Rangers. The quick 'whys' here: Maroon spends his offseasons in Tampa and has been practicing with his old teammates for some time now, Grzelcyk would reunite with former BU head coach and current Pens assistant David Quinn in Pittsburgh, and JVR grew up a Rangers fan and wants a Cup. I don't feel as certain on the third one, but it feels like a box JVR has yet to check in his career, and the Rangers love their veteran types with a knack for the net front.
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