Canucks Army Prospect Profiles #11: Guillaume Brisebois

When Guillaume Brisebois was picked 66th overall in 2015 with the top selection that the Canucks received for Eddie Lack, the predominant thought was that he would always be judged based on that trade. While there is still a bit of cachet to his name, a variety of circumstances have changed the light under which Brisebois is viewed, likely for the better.

A steady, smooth skating, two-way defenceman, Guillaume Brisebois checks in at number 11 on our list of the Top 20 Canucks Prospects.

Continuing the line of thought presented above, Brisebois has benefited from a couple of factors. First, the goaltending situation in Vancouver has made the loss of Eddie Lack look rather insignificant. Jacob Markstrom had a breakout year, looking like a future starting netminder, while the aging Ryan Miller had a bounce back year, appearing dependable in more measured minutes. Not to mention that Thatcher Demko, one of the league’s best goaltending prospects, is waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, Eddie Lack had a rough start to his Carolina tenure, posting the worst numbers of his still young career.

Another factor that has helped Brisebois’ perception in Vancouver is the increasing defensive depth in the Canucks’ prospect system. Shortly after Brisebois was taken, the Canucks picked up Carl Neill and Tate Olson, both of whom vastly outperformed expectations in 2015-16, as did Ben Hutton, Jordan Subban and Ashton Sautner in their respective rookie seasons in professional, relative to what was expected of them. The Canucks have since signed Troy Stecher, the top NCAA free agent defenceman available this year, and drafted Olli Juolevi, arguably the best defenceman available at the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. They also picked up offensive defenceman Cole Candella later on in that draft.

All in all, since Brisebois’ name was called last June, the Canucks have added several promising young defensive prospects and had strong seasons from those already in house. Between that and the goaltending situation, there is considerably less pressure on Brisebois than what we would have expected at the time of his selection.

Brisebois had a solid 2015-16 campaign himself, more than doubling his goal output. While he actually tallied two fewer points than in 2014-15, he also played nearly a dozen fewer games, leading to an improvement in his points per game ratio.

Running his numbers through the pGPS system, we find that only 5.1 percent (n = 138) of players deemed statistical matches to Brisebois went on to play at least 200 NHL games. For starters, the QMJHL traditionally feeds much fewer prospects to the NHL than the other Canadian Hockey Leagues – even the USHL has been outperforming the QMJHL of late. That means that Brisebois’s list of matches is chock full of duds, what with his rather pedestrian counting stats. Among his seven successful matches are Francois Beauchemin and Zbynek Michalek.

Brisebois’ offensive numbers certainly don’t jump off the page, especially when compared against fellow 2015 draftees Carl Neill and Tate Olson. The catch is that Brisebois played for the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, one of the most dreadful teams in all the QMJHL. Brisebois logged huge minutes this season on a team with few, if any, NHL hopefuls. A transitional defenceman, Brisebois would often be responsible for retrieving the puck and carrying it out of his zone, distributing it to a forward in the neutral zone. Far too frequently this simply resulted in the puck dying on teammates’ sticks, and the puck heading straight back into the defensive zone again.

Brisebois won’t have to struggle to quite that extent next season, as he was traded to the Charlottetown Islanders in early June. While the Islanders are not a spectacular team themselves, they’re a far cry from the group that Brisebois played with last season. Just how much of an improvement the Islanders are over the Titan will be dependent of which of their star players stick around for another season in the QMJHL.

Brisebois is leaving a team with no NHL affiliated players for a club with a couple of high pedigree forwards in Daniel Sprong (Pittsburgh, 2015, round one), and Filip Chlapik (Ottawa, 2015, round two), though they are losing forward Samuel Blais to St. Louis’ farm team, and goaltender Mason McDonald to Calgary’s farm team. In fact, given that Sprong played 18 games last season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Islanders are at risk of losing him to the NHL this year. Sprong’s whereabouts come October could make a huge difference for the Charlottetown side, and thus could have a residual effect on Brisebois’ season.

In any case, Brisebois is looking favourably on his new arrangement. “I’m really pumped about it,” he told the Guardian, a Charlottetown paper. “I think that there’s going to be a great team (there) next year.”

That may not be the only new team that Brisebois joins next season, as he recently attended the Summer Showcase as a member of Team Canada. While it would certainly be fair to consider Brisebois an outlier in terms of likelihood of making the team, he does have some history with Hockey Canada, having played for Canada at the Ivan Hlinka tournament in 2014 and the IIHF U18’s in 2015.

TSN’s Jon Abbott, who attended the Summer Showcase, recently spoke about Brisebois’ chances to make the team. “When you consider that there is only one returning name from last year, there could be a door open there,” Abbott mentioned. “He played a shutdown role with Hockey Canada before, he’d likely be expected to do that again, so if they find the right mix, there’s a chance the Canucks could have a representative on Team Canada.”

If that were to happen, Brisebois would be the only Canuck to represent Canada at the upcoming World Juniors, after the Canucks were represented in the past three years by Bo Horvat and Jake Virtanen (twice). The Canucks will have top flight players on both Team Finland (Olli Juolevi) and Team USA (Brock Boeser), but it’s always nice cheering for a Canuck on Team Canada.

Brisebois is a defensive minded prospect who takes care of his own zone first and foremost, though he has shown an aptitude for rushing the puck at the junior level. He looks up to Chris Tanev, and you can see why – they play similar styles.

What becomes of Brisebois remains to be seen. Following the trade and the showcase, he’s got an opportunity to make this the best season of his young career. As one piece in an expanded array of defensive depth, Brisebois can focus on developing his game without any undue pressure added. He’s got lots of time to make the Eddie Lack trade look like a win, but it’s not the do-or-die situation that we once thought it would be.