NHL free agency officially opened a month and a half ago so you are not alone if you basically forgot that winger Jake DeBrusk (a restricted free agent) was still sitting around waiting for the Bruins to hit him up with a contract offer. Naturally, on a sleepy Monday night a few days before Thanksgiving, B's GM Don Sweeney & Co. got it done as they signed DeBrusk to a two-year deal worth $7.35 million. It has to be a relief for Jake after he saw literally hundreds of players from around the league get paid recently while he and his agent patiently bided their time waiting for Boston to make a decision.
In many ways, this was an easy move for the Bruins since DeBrusk represents one of their few young forwards who has really shown anything positive lately at the NHL level. He was the middle pick of Boston's infamous three first round selections in the 2015 Draft. Sandwiched around DeBrusk at No. 14 were defenseman Jakub Zboril at No. 13 and right wing Zach Senyshyn. Haha who? Only hardcore Bruins or hockey fans know who those other two guys are since neither has made any kind of impact yet for the B's and they've mostly been stuck wasting away in Providence.
Jake just wrapped up his third full season with the Bruins and he's been consistently productive from his rookie year until now. He's scored at least 16 goals and had at least 16 assists in all three seasons. He's also been relatively durable-and almost always worthy of a lineup spot-since he played 70 games in 2017-18, 68 games the following season and 65 in this past Covid-19 shortened schedule. After recording 27 assists in his rookie campaign and 27 goals in his second season, I think that many were understandably a bit disappointed that his game didn't take any noticeable leap in 2019-20 but rather it felt stuck in neutral.
His plus/minus has also plummeted from plus-13 in his first year, to plus-two then minus-one. For most of his brief Bruins career, David Krejci has centered DeBrusk on the second line with a revolving door of nobodies at right wing. That's not an excuse for the dip in his numbers but a statement of fact. When you watch Jake over a full season including the playoffs, you see more than a few glimpses of some outstanding tools: game-breaking pace, great hands to get around defensemen and goaltenders in small areas not to mention the clutch plays that he often makes. He's been on the Bruins' second power play unit for much of the last two seasons and he has potted eight goals and seven goals there respectively. He also put up 14 game-winning goals (in the regular season) between his first three years which is nothing to sneeze at.
The bubble playoffs were not his friend though as he was mostly shut down to the tune of only four points (all goals) in 13 games. That paled in comparison to his rookie season when Boston where he notched six goals and two assists in only 12 games or the next season where they went to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and he had four goals and seven assists. He's definitely an X-factor kind of guy and like most teams, the Bruins are always in need of some secondary scoring from DeBrusk as well as many others besides the top line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.
If you've ever watched Behind The B (NESN's underrated behind the scenes show about the Bruins) or you've caught some of his hilarious post-game interviews, you know that Jake is a character to say the least. Having grown up around the NHL (his dad Louie was a long-time enforcer), he has a great sense of humor-witness the mullet that he has sported for long stretches-and being Canadian the typical down-to-Earth, relatable nature. Playing here generally doesn't bring the same insane pressure as a Toronto or Montreal but for an American market, it's still pretty tough. I wouldn't worry too much though about that being a factor for DeBrusk since he seems well equipped to handling the ups and downs of a professional sports career. With the right attention to details-like getting stronger for puck battles in the corners and better touch around the net-he has the ability to be a 30-goal scorer in the near future. It took way too long to get this done but I think we can all agree that this was a good day for the Bruins.
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