EDMONTON — Everywhere Riley Duran has gone, he has worked, and worked, and worked until he got himself to the next place.
That was true at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass., where Robbie Barker, his head coach and English teacher, watched him fail to meet his own expectations as a freshman only to become “one of the best players in prep hockey” as a junior on the ice, and re-write papers over and over again until he got the grade he wanted in the classroom off of it.
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“He’s the type of kid that doesn’t take no for an answer. He’s the type of kid that is always working and when he’s working he gives everything he’s got,” Barker said. “Nothing comes easy to him but he’s got a go-getter mentality that has proven that if he does put his mind to it, he’s going to accomplish it at some point. It may not be as quickly as some of his teammates or his classmates but he’ll accomplish what he wants.”
It was true in Youngstown, with the USHL’s Phantoms, where after a difficult start under a new head coach, Brad Patterson, the sixth-round pick of the Bruins out of Lawrence Academy turned himself into one of the team’s “top two players on a nightly basis” in the last two months of the 2020-21 season — even when the numbers still weren’t coming.
“It’s not often where you’re not doing as well statistically as you’d hope, and there’s always a pouty lip or something, and Riley showed up every day and just put his best foot forward,” Patterson said. “He produced a lot, but maybe not on the scoresheet. And you wouldn’t have known that from maybe looking at the stat sheet. He’s a great example even talking to young players now of ‘just keep working and good things happen.’”
It was true, last season, in his 10-goal freshman year at Providence College under a third head coach in as many years, Nate Leaman (who will tell you that’s a “really good freshman season” and point out that all 10 of the goals were at even strength because he wasn’t on the power play), playing for a school an hour from his home under the coach that recruited him and never stopped believing in him — even when he could have.
And it was true this week, under that same head coach at the 2022 world juniors, where the 20-year-old didn’t just wear the Team USA jersey for the very first time but had a major impact in it, with his coaching calling him one of the team’s “most detailed players” and lauding his speed, work ethic, physicality and effectiveness.
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While Duran’s career had not travelled along the same linear paths as most of his peers, he’d arrived at the same place as them.
So even when his experience with the national team didn’t end the way he’d envisioned it, with USA (after its perfect 4-0-0-0 round robin) falling to Czechia in the quarterfinals, when it was over it still meant a lot to him — maybe more than it did to those peers, the ones who were supposed to be there.
It still stung. That was the first thing he said as he stood in the Oilers Hall of Fame at Rogers Place moments after defeat: “It stings.”
But he could also appreciate it.
“It was definitely an honour, first time playing for my country, especially with a great coaching staff, a great team, and just playing with such great players and making the relationships. There’s a lot to take back from this,” Duran said. “It’s such a good team. But I mean, this is the game of hockey. It hurts sometimes and you love it sometimes. It happens.”
Standing in the Oilers Hall of Fame a day earlier on Team USA’s off day between the round robin and their quarterfinal, Duran was asked if he thought he’d be here a year or a year and a half ago.
“Not really,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not trying to put myself down like that but Nate Leaman always thought I had something in me.”
Asked if he felt at the start of this tournament that he’d produce and make the kind of impact he has, though, he answered differently.
“I did,” he said.
And he was right: He had. The proof was in his five points (two goals, three assists) in four round-robin games, good for fifth on the team in scoring as an integral part of their bottom six despite being the team’s second-lowest drafted forward.
That’s because between now and then, a lot had changed for him.
A year ago he was wrapping up that season in Youngstown. There, he’d posted just eight goals and 19 points in 47 games while playing in a league that he was never drafted into. A year before that, he’d posted 22 goals and 44 points in 27 games with Lawrence Academy to be named the ISL MVP, and 12 points in 27 games with the Cape Cod Whalers 18U AAA team. His play with Lawrence Academy was enough to grab the attention of his hometown Bruins, who drafted him with the 182nd pick in the 2020 NHL Draft (it was also enough to get him ranked 95th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting on their final list that year).
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Before Lawrence Academy, he was a player who had to work his way onto teams at USA Hockey’s selects festivals as a teenager — rather than the hotshot prospect who was just given a spot. He was cut from the selects team in his first year trying out in Buffalo, before making it his second and third years.
But after a 10-goal, 19-point freshman year saw him finish fourth on the Friars in goals and sixth in points, he knew that his status as a prospect had changed when Leaman told him in his exit meeting to keep in the back of his head as he trained that an invite to camp for the summer world juniors might be an option for him.
Then he got a call in June from Leaman to officially extend him the invite.
“Just play your game, don’t think about anything else,” Leaman told him.
By the time the camp was over, it wasn’t just Leaman, or former Providence assistant Kris Mayotte (who is now a head coach at Colorado College but worked on the Team USA staff as an assistant), or Providence director of hockey operations Theresa Feaster (who worked with Team USA as their video coach), who were sold either. When Providence assistant coach Joel Beal asked Leaman how Duran was doing during tryouts, Leaman told him everyone could see what they saw.
“Nate didn’t have to go in there and beat the drum for Riley. It just took everyone else watching him closely for a couple of days and they’re like ‘Oh yeah, this guy’s got to be on the team,’” Beal said. “So it was actually coming from the other guys in the room and not necessarily from the people that know him, which speaks a lot to Riley’s game.”
Duran calls getting his USA Hockey gloves, gear and t-shirts “unbelievable” because he was one of the only players on the team who didn’t have any prior.
The Bruins taking him was also a “dream come true” because he’s a kid from nearby Woburn, Mass. Both of his parents, Jim and Lori, work at Woburn High School in town and the entire Duran family lives on Duran Drive, their own family street all to themselves. He grew up playing street hockey outside with members of his extended family (his sister, Kayla, now plays soccer at Brown University, too).
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“Everyone played hockey. I was the youngest so I was always the one getting beat up when I was little until I hit a growth spurt and then I started beating up on them,” Duran said.
When they host their development camp, it’s just 15 minutes from his house and he jokes that he could do laundry at home between skates if he wanted to. If he needs anything from the team, or wants to speak with someone on staff, he can just meet with them instead of calling them.
Since getting drafted, that has included regular meetings with Jamie Langenbrunner, the Bruins’ now-assistant general manager and director of player personnel who was, until recently, their director of player development.
In Duran, Langenbrunner sees a player who is defined by his “motor and ability to play through people.”
“He can finish a hit, he can play through stick checks, he can get himself to the difficult areas consistently because he’s able and willing,” Langenbrunner told The Athletic on a phone call Tuesday. “And he has what I would consider adequate skill to make enough plays to be effective. It’s not going to be the highlight one that ends up on Twitter but it’s going to be the one that’s effective in games.”
Even in his post-draft season in Youngstown when his stats didn’t look like that of a kid who’d later become an important part of Team USA at the world juniors, Langenbrunner could see those things. He may not have been where he would have liked that year, but Langenbrunner insists “his game was solid, he was doing the right things, and that was the messaging from (the Bruins) the whole time at that point.”
“The points are going to be what they are at times, especially as a player playing the style that he does. But you can still have an impact on the game and now he’s starting to get rewarded for it. Last year, I think you’ve seen it even here (at the world juniors), the ability to shoot the puck. He had that going at Youngstown but he was missing, he was hitting crossbars. And the team was average that year, so that all kind of played into it a bit too,” Langenbrunner said.
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“I think what you’re seeing is the growth of the player in the development process. So often, we get caught up on drafts, and timing, and we’re in such a hurry for these kids to be finished products. They’re not. They take time to develop. And he has continued to add strength, and continued to work on his skills.”
When the staff at Providence watched him in Youngstown that year, they always thought he was “still playing really well” too.
“He was still impacting the game in a lot of different ways and that offensive production just wasn’t there. And then when he came in with us, for whatever reason I just think his game translates better as he moves up from level to level,” Beal said. “The game gets a little tighter, the game gets a little harder, but that kind of accentuates all of the different things that he does really well.”
Duran’s game worked right away in college, with none of the slow uptick he’d needed at Lawrence Academy or in Youngstown. He registered an assist in his first game and his first goal the next weekend in his third.
“He always plays a really heavy game in terms of heavy being on the puck, heavy being on the forecheck, finishing every hit. So he’s always going to bring that sort of tenacity and in-your-face, hard-to-play-against style of game. And then with the puck, he just keeps getting better and better. His stick is better than a lot of people give him credit for. I think he can really finish around the net. And that’s what allows him to play up and down the lineup, because he’s smart enough and his stick is good enough to play with our top players but he’s heavy enough and hard enough that you can put him in a checking role and he’s really good at that too,” Beal said.
“He’s a really low-maintenance player and low-maintenance kid. It doesn’t matter what we ask him to do or what we ask him to work on, he just says ‘sure’ and then he just goes out and he just does it and he keeps improving. He brings the same work ethic and attitude to practice every day and the guys love being around him. If we want him to work on the penalty kill, he’ll fill that role. If we want him to jump in on the power play, he’ll fill that role. If we want him on the second line, he’ll fill that role. If he’s on our fourth line, he’ll fill that role. And he’ll always help the team win no matter what.”
Once Langunbrunner got to know the kid, he also knew he’d put in the time and effort to get to where he has, too.
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“He’s an excellent kid. He’s very humble, he’s hardworking, he’s very open to feedback, and he just wants to get better,” Langenbrunner said.
Barker saw those qualities firsthand in the classroom, as well.
“He’s the type of kid who is extremely respectful, he’s the type of kid who has friends in five different friend groups because he gets along with everyone. The kid is awesome. He’s awesome. I love him,” Barker said.
According to Patterson, the Bruins’ and Providence’s belief in him after that tough year in Youngstown was well-founded, too.
The tools were always there for the 6-foot-2, 180-pound winger.
“Making the jump from prep into the USHL, there’s going to be struggles. Maybe not from a play perspective, but usually from a point perspective. You’re not going to put up huge, gaudy numbers. And he came in and he was a physical force, an awesome kid, an awesome teammate. Like he checks all of the boxes in terms of that stuff away from the rink. And then he just put his nose down and went to work every day,” Patterson said.
“The effort’s always there, he’s got a motor that never stops, and when I say physical force, he’s not only put the work into it but a lot of it is god-given and then he puts it to good use. His compete level is high and anything you ask him to do, he’s willing to go out and try. I thought he developed a ton over his time but it was maybe in areas that you don’t see on the scoresheet every single game. Now it’s happening for him.”
Along his winding young career, there has been one person who has been a constant for Duran: Rangers prospect Brett Berard.
Duran and Berard played against each other growing up, and have played with each other since they were both 15 years old. That began with the Whalers AAA team and it has continued at Providence and now with Team USA.
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Only when Duran was at Lawrence Academy, Berard was with the national program following that more linear path. And when Duran was in Youngstown post-draft, Berard was playing his freshman year at Providence.
So while they’re the same age, Berard has been there, at Providence and then in Edmonton, to help support Duran through some firsts in his journey.
“There’s just kind of a little connection going. He’s a great buddy of mine. Here too, he knew a lot of the guys from the (national) program when he grew up playing here and he really brought me in and introduced everyone to me,” Duran said.
But the feeling is also mutual.
“I’ve known him forever. I’m so happy he’s at Providence and I’m definitely happy to have him here. It gives me someone I’ve grown up with and a familiar face. He’s definitely one of my best friends,” Berard said.
He also knows Duran’s game as well as anyone. And he’s proud of his friend for becoming what he has.
“I give all of the credit to him. He’s such a hard worker. And he’s an awesome player. How much he has developed over the past three or four years is extraordinary. He had a great freshman year at Providence. It’s hard coming in as a freshman and having a big impact like he did and now at world juniors he’s playing a super big role for us and our team. That gives a lot of credit to him as a player and the way he has matured over the years,” Berard said.
“He’s reliable defensively, down low his game thrives, he’s a big body, he’s a big kid, when he has the puck on his stick it’s hard to get it off of him, (and) he’s got a shot — I mean, you’ve seen it in these games, he’s got a rocket of a shot.”
Berard’s not the only one who is cheering Duran on either. He has turned all of Leaman, Beal, Patterson, Barker and Langenbrunner into fans and believers.
“I think he’s going to find an opportunity for himself at the next level no question just because he worked for it. Nothing has been given to him. He kicks the door down and he keeps earning new opportunities and I think he’s going to keep doing that,” Patterson said. “It doesn’t jump when you just watch the games. And then all of a sudden you’ll be like ‘Wow, I just keep seeing him, he’s doing something right.’”
Beal said that because of his “wide range of tools” Duran has found a way to make an impact at every level he has played at (prep, junior, college and now the world juniors) and believes he’ll do the same in the pro game.
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Langenbrunner says we’re now seeing why the Bruins scouts were happy to get him in the sixth round.
“He shows attributes of a guy who can play in the bottom part of a lineup,” Langenbrunner said.
From afar during the world juniors, Barker watched and taped the games so that he can use Duran’s game as a model for his team when they return to school in the fall.
“It’s stops and starts, it’s finishing every check, and it’s competing the 200 feet of the ice. And that’s the type of kid that he is. There are no shortcuts for him,” Barker said. “I know he understands the process where maybe his first year at (this) level it’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows but he’s always going to eventually find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And now people are starting to see what he can bring to the table. He can play in a top six, he can play in a bottom six, (and) his game’s not going to change wherever he is.”
Duran?
He’s proud of himself.
“I just kept working,” he said.
(Top photo: Rena Laverty / USA Hockey)
