About three-quarters of the way through last season, Stars general manager Jim Nill gave me an update on what he was seeing at the time from Stars prospect Mavrik Bourque. I’d best describe his demeanor as “giddy.”
“He’s doing things at a young age, leading a team, dominating at a level, and you have to realize how hard that is,” Nill gushed. “He’d probably be closer to being on our [NHL] team right now if numbers weren’t the way they were, but he’ll have his time, and it’s coming soon.”
And for Nill, that time is arrived. After all, what more could Bourque prove in the minors? He led the American Hockey League with 77 points last season. He was a runaway winner of the league MVP award. And don’t blame Bourque for the Texas Stars’ early playoff exit; he turned in 11 points in seven dominant AHL playoff games.
The 22-year-old entered this season a lock to make the NHL roster and only missed Dallas’ first three games due to an undisclosed injury. That leaves Nill and Co. patiently waiting for the breakout.
Bourque has played a limited role in his three appearances this season, averaging close to 11 minutes per game and firing just one shot on goal since re-entering the lineup against the San Jose Sharks on Oct. 15. He’s been pedestrian, a tough reality so soon after he was the most dynamic force in the AHL. One of the biggest differences between the NHL and AHL is the structure. There are fewer breakdowns in the NHL—even by so-called bad teams—and Bourque has struggled to find holes he found in the AHL a year ago.
“I think this has been a bit expected given the coming off the injury and the Stars having some other set lines that they don’t really want to mix up too much,” one NHL scout told D Magazine. “I saw the spots with him, watched him closely the other night, I think the vision is there. It’s more of him building off that now.”
Given how Wyatt Johnston and then Logan Stankoven burst onto the scene, Bourque’s early NHL days feel disappointing by comparison. But the context makes it understandable, and that’s part of why the Stars are willing to let Bourque figure it out at this level.
Another reason is his makeup. Bourque has built his young career off of making big leaps in a short period of time. In fact, it’s one of the reasons the Stars drafted him with the 30th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. Five years ago, Bourque emerged as an instant impact scorer in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, notching 25 goals in 64 games during his first QMJHL season. He was also woeful defensively, and there were questions about whether he was a genuinely prolific scorer or a product of poor defensive league. The following season, Bourque blossomed into a more complete player. Seemingly overnight, he started winning shifts against other team’s top lines and tracking back better defensively. His offense grew along with the rest of his game, en route to 71 points in 49 games during his second QMJHL campaign.
It was a similar story in the AHL, where by all accounts Bourque was a middling player for Texas during the 2022-23 season. Then came the 2023-24 campaign, when the same player who looked so unprepared for the rigors of professional hockey emerged as the best player in the whole league. No wonder Nill was so giddy.
“He learns. I love that,” an NHL amateur scout told me. “I remember watching him during his draft year, and he came and had new elements to his game. That’s what made him intriguing to us as a first-round talent. He always felt like one of those players that with a couple years, he could learn and just get better.”
From talking to those who know Bourque well, and speaking to the player himself last season, there’s a common theme. Bourque sees failure as a point to grow, not something that distracts him from the final goal. In fact, his first NHL call-up last season came after he asked the Stars for an NHL game—he had also earned it—because he wanted to see how he struggled at the higher level so he could work on continued improvement with Texas.
It’s one of the reasons why Bourque is so intriguing to me. We hear hockey cliches all the time about guys who “get it” at a young age, so much so that the value of that praise gets watered down. Bourque is a reminder of what it’s supposed to look like. He’s admitted to me that he didn’t take the game seriously enough off the ice during the 2022-23 season in the AHL, so he invested in himself and, through his agent, hired his own nutritionist and skills coach.
“I was young and didn’t realize what I was missing,” Bourque told me at the time. “I basically said, ‘Yeah, I’m good enough.’ And then last year, I still didn’t do it for the first month of being in the AHL and I was just struggling. That’s when I realized maybe I should be using something that can actually help my game.”
That’s the sort of realization many players a half decade his senior don’t make. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that he was also given an “A” last season as Texas’ alternate captain, an honor that Texas coach Neil Graham is stingy with and rarely gives to non-veterans. Texas Stars captain Curtis McKenzie describes an “it factor” with Bourque, where he understands all roles and isn’t afraid to do anything for a teammate on or off the ice.
Bourque’s game, while slower maturing at the NHL level, also adds long-term value once he adapts to his new surroundings. He plays the game with his brain far more than his body, with a style that’s built on manipulating time and space. That figures to help him age very well into his thirties thanks to the wear and tear it will save his body in his twenties.
In some ways, it makes him the inverse of Stankoven, who is the better NHLer now and might remain the better point producer in the long run. But the 5-foot-8 Stankoven plays a physically intense brand of hockey that puts beating after beating on his small frame. At some point he will have to dial back the game-to-game intensity for a shot at longevity. Bourque, on other hand, is built to last.
That’s all well and good for tomorrow, but Pete DeBoer’s job is to win games today. At some point, Bourque will have to prove he’s a viable part of that winning strategy to keep his spot in the lineup.
This is where the value of a strong working relationship between DeBoer and Nill comes in. Nill lets DeBoer pick the lineup, but he’s also an ardent believer that Bourque is part of the Stars’ long-term core. Early in the season, then, the first-round pick is going to be given extra time to establish his NHL identity. DeBoer understands that. In fact, one of the reasons Nils Lundkvist got as much run as he did last season was Nill being adamant the Stars find out what they had with the young defender, before crunch time rolled around. Once it did, and Lundkvist still hadn’t earned full trust, DeBoer was free to scratch him.
So use that as a template for Bourque. He’ll likely get half a season to impress his coach, and it’s up to him to make the most of it. But don’t worry if he can’t speed up his typical acclimation period. History tells us Bourque will figure it out on the second go-around.
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