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Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond is the new muscle protecting the Syracuse Crunch locker room.

(Lindsay Kramer | LKramer@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. — Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond feels trapped.

That has more to do with just the sense of his sport closing in on him, isolating his role as an enforcer and then pushing him out after he's spilled so much blood and taken so many stitches on its behalf.

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Letourneau-Leblond truly sounds claustrophobic when he talks about winning. Or, more precisely, what he hasn't won yet.

At age 31 he could start thinking about retiring or maybe putting on a show for more money overseas. But Letourneau-Leblond isn't one to duck when the cause is a good one.He has skated in 448 career AHL games with the Albany Devils, Albany River Rats, Lowell Devils, Abbotsford Heat, Norfolk Admirals and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

He has posted 26 goals 65 points and 1,692 penalty minutes in that stretch. But he's skated in just 14 career Calder Cup games, and has never won an AHL championship.

"Yes, it's money. Yes it's the chance to play in the NHL. But it's also, for me, where I am in my life, it's about winning,'' Letourneau-Leblond said earlier this week. "I've come close with really good teams in the past. I can't go to Europe. I can't leave. I can't quit hockey until I've won something. It's really deep in me. I need to win something.

"That's what it's all about. You get once chance a year. You have one team. To me, it's really important to help the young guys understand that this is not the NHL. It's not the Stanley Cup. But, man, raising the Calder Cup, all the guys who have done it...ask them about it and their eyes (light up). It's unbelievable. At any level, you get to be a winner, you're a winner your whole life. That's the one thing I'm still chasing.''

And so that now brings him to the Syracuse Crunch, who signed him as a free agent in the off-season. It is for that team that Letourneau-Leblond will now drop the gloves, although like many of the team's previous enforcers (Mike Sgroi, Jon Mirasty, Brandon Sugden, etc.) he doesn't actually like fighting.

"I don't know that some guys love (fighting). I think it's just them trying to be the tough guy. I don't enjoy fighting, the action of punching and getting punched,'' he said. "I enjoy fighting, the action of sticking up for my teammates and protecting my teammates and making room for them and making sure there's no cheap shots. That's the part of my job that I just love.

"There's no worse feeling than being a healthy scratch or being hurt and being in the stands and seeing something happen on the ice and being like, man, if I was out there it wouldn't have happened. So yes, I do love what I do. I love who I am, as part of a team. But fighting, and punching people, and everything, I'm not proud of hurting people. But sometimes it has to be done. That's the game we play. It happens quick. It's always been there and there's a reason why. I think it's an important part of the game.''

And it's an element that he will now showcase in front of an appreciative War Memorial crowd. Through his extensive stints with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Albany, Letourneau-Leblond might be the most frequently hated rival in Crunch history.

That changes now, at least for a season.

"This is the reputation of the Crunch. It's a tough team to play against,'' he said. "It goes with the crowd that's loud, the smaller rink. It feels good to be on this side ice now.''

Letourneau-Leblond, who has played in 41 career NHL games, didn't think long when given that opportunity. He said Tampa Bay called him on the first day of free agency.

"I know what he can bring to a team. He's been in this league for quite a bit. He's respected. And I believe that's what you need on a hockey club,'' said Crunch coach Benoit Groulx. "You've got to make sure that you have people on the ice that make your team respected. I think with his experience, the way he plays, what he brings to the table, I think he's going to be important on the ice and he's going to be important also as well in the room.''

The opportunity to keep playing in Central New York fit perfectly into Letourneau-Leblond's priorities. His wife, Nicole, will give birth to their second child in January. She will remain in Albany until then, with Pierre-Luc commuting when possible.

Letourneau-Leblond, commonly known as "PL3," has been a hit in training camp. He said young players like Jake Dotchin have already asked him for advice. Letourneau-Leblond told him not to worry about squaring up with the heavyweights; that's his job. Instead, players need to be aware of how to defend themselves in quick flareups.

"I love explaining to them how the other guy feels in a fight. It's not always about how you feel. It's about the other guy, how to protect yourself. It's not about knocking the guy out. It's about making sure you get your team going,'' he said.

"I always come in with a gameplan. I know the fighters. I know how they're going to go. But sometimes it's another fighter who's going to come to me. I don't know what he's going to do. I don't know if he's a lefty or righty. So I have to be prepared for anything.''



Most players like Letourneau-Leblond need to start getting prepared for another line of work. Tougher rules against fighting in the game will all but eliminated staged fights, and Letourneau-Leblond might be among the last true two or three heavyweights in the AHL this season.

"It's changing for the good, in most parts. I feel like it's happening really quick, that change. That's what I don't like about it. I feel like it should be a smoother transition,'' he said. "But I trust the people who are making the changes. They are obviously some really smart people. They love the game. So if they do it to make it better, and this is what it takes, I respect it. It sucks that it's my breed that's going away. But that's the evolution of the game, I guess.''

It's a transition that Letourneau-Leblond has tried to match. Tampa Bay assistant general manager Julien BriseBois insists that the brawler is good enough to take regular shifts, and points to the 52 games he played for a good Albany team last season.

"Well, you've got to be able to play,'' BriseBois said.

"It's crazy in the last five years, how much my game has evolved. I've had really good coaches in the last five years,'' Letourneau-Leblond said. "They all had the same conversation with me. And it was not disrespectful. But they're like, 'Pierre. You're not good enough. You have to work on this. You have to work on that.' And they didn't only tell me what to do. They helped me get there. That's what a good coach is. It's not always about, this is my system, this is all I wanted. No. It's like, make me better. That's what it's all about.''

And perhaps even more than fighting, Letourneau-Leblond knows its his job to spin that forward. He admits that as a young player, he was impatient and thought he deserved better.

Now, the only thing he's impatient with are today's prospects who think the same.

Getting to the NHL is a great goal, he agrees. But how about winning something along the way?

"Man, it's hard (making the NHL). Everybody comes back here (after training camp). You feel like, ah, I should be up there. It should be me. And you get to a point in life whether it's the Stanley Cup or the Calder Cup, we're so lucky to be doing what we do,'' he said. "And it's the best job in the world. So for me, that's the message I want to tell those young guys.

"I have the feeling, those kids (on the Crunch), they know already that it's important to win at this level and bring it to the next level. I have a really good feeling about this young group of guys. But it's a big part of my job to make sure they understand that and they realize that we're here to win. We're not here to (bleeping) coast and hopefully get called up. No. You're here to win. And if you get called up, (bleeping) right, it's good for you.''

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