Bruins think big at draft despite being short on picks
By
Kevin Paul Dupont Globe Staff,Updated June 29, 2024, 7:56 p.m.
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Vermont native, and 6-foot-2-inch defenseman, Elliott Groenewold was drafted by the Bruins in the fourth round.BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY
LAS VEGAS — Short on picks in the 2024 NHL Draft, the Bruins left here Saturday night with only four new prospects, all of them at least 6 feet 2 inches tall, with towering centerman Dean Letourneau (6-7) the biggest.
From a distance, it might look like they’re putting the Big back in the onetime Big Bad Bruins.
“The size thing is somewhat of a factor,” noted Ryan Nadeau, the club’s director of amateur scouting, as the draft concluded at the fabulous Sphere. “But It’s not like we set a height line that they’ve got to get over to get on the amusement park ride.”
The day after taking Letourneau in Round 1 (No. 25), the Bruins picked up a pair of defenseman and another center, on a day when they also bid adieu to Jakub Lauko, the affable, energetic Czech forward.
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Lauko was swapped to the Wild in order for the Bruins to move up 12 picks in Round 4, from 122 to 110, to make their first selection on Saturday.
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The ever-smiling Lauko, whose career in Black and Gold amounted to 91 games (eight in the playoffs), gets a fresh start with the team whose general manager is ex-Bruin Bill Guerin. The transaction underscores what is often lost on draft day: the NHL is first and foremost a business, with no promises attached to those draft tickets or the dream printed on the backside.
Lauko, picked at No. 77 in 2018, was one of five picks the Bruins made in that draft. All now in their mid-20s, none of the others has played a single NHL game. Six years later, the best of the bunch, Lauko, has to hope new scenery brings more promising results.
“Part of the cycle here, right?” mused Nadeau, who well understands the emotional investment club personnel make in draft picks and the hope that they’ll succeed. “What we’re trying to do is draft some players that have an impact, and can have an impact for the Boston Bruins. Obviously, Lauks had some impact, he played … then [general manager] Donny [Sweeney] and his staff have to do what they think is in the best interest of the team.”
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Which on Saturday, meant dishing Lauko to move higher in the draft order, enabling the Bruins to select Elliott Groenewold, a Vermont born-and-raised defenseman who’ll report to Quinnipiac in September for his freshman season.
Groenewold, 6-2/202 pounds, grew up in southern Vermont (Springfield) and became a rink rat at age 3, dragged to the Vermont Academy rink by three older brothers who propped him up in net for target practice. He played last season at USHL Cedar Rapids, following three seasons of high school hockey [Bishops College) in Quebec
The player he’d like to turn into someday for the Bruins: Hampus Lindholm or Bandon Carlo.
“I like to play a really hard, gritty, hard-to-play against defensive game,” said Groenewold. “I really take pride in playing defense and doing a really good job in our own zone. And when the time is right, jump up in the play.”
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In the swap with the Wild, the Bruins also picked up NHL journeyman Vinni Lettieri, who spent the 2022-23 season with the Bruins organization. Other than one game with the varsity, Lettieri remained in the AHL with Providence. He signed as a free agent last July with the Wild and produced 9 points in 46 games.
All four Boston picks, which included Jonathan Morello, a 6-3 center from Toronto, and Loke Johansson, a 6-3 blue liner from Sweden, on Monday are expected to suit up for the Black and Gold when the club opens development camp.
The kids will be a focus that day, but the much bigger event will be going on inside Sweeney’s office on Guest Street. It’s the start of free agency and Sweeney is expected to make at least two or three acquisitions chiefly aimed at boosting the varsity lineup’s profile at the center position. He will be in the hunt for a bona fide No. 1 pivot (Elias Lindholm?) and a top four defenseman (Brady Skjei?).
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Morello, who played lower-tier junior hockey in Ontario last season, is headed to USHL Dubuque in the fall. Coincidentally, Dubuque is where Bruins coach Jim Montgomery coached for three seasons (2010-2013) and twice led the Fighting Saints to the league championship.
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Following his season in Dubuque, Morello will report to Clarkson for his freshman season with the Golden Knights in 2025. He said he spoke briefly a while back with recruiters from Boston University, but Clarkson aggressively recruited him and he is eager to begin his career there.
As a pre-kindergartner, Morello lived for a year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, his father employed there as a landscape architect. He was 5 or 6, he said, when he first played hockey upon the family’s return to Toronto.
“I didn’t even know what offside meant,” he recalled.
About a dozen years later, the self-described “quick learner” was saying how “surreal” it was to be here, wearing the Black and Gold sweater of his new favorite NHL team.
Johansson, the only one of the four picks not present in Las Vegas, plays a physical game and “closes space pretty well,” said Nadeau. “He’ll need to improve his puck play” and learn “not to overcomplicate things.”
The perpetual, underlying truth of defense: the simple, easy play is often the best. But easy can be the hardest thing to learn. The lessons begin Monday.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at
[email protected].