Vancouver Canucks check off plenty of boxes by signing Jake DeBrusk

Sometimes, the Free Agent Frenzy doesn’t quite live up to its ambitious billing.

And sometimes it does.

July 1, 2024 definitely falls into the latter camp, and that’s as true for the Vancouver Canucks as it is any other franchise. GM Patrik Allvin and Co. made six (and counting?) signings in the first few hours of free agency, and there’s little doubt that the biggest of the bunch was Jake DeBrusk, who signed for seven years at an AAV of $5.5 million.

In this series of instant reactions, we’re running through the most prominent new signings and pondering which of the team’s various needs these players might fill.

And when it comes to DeBrusk, the boxes checked off are numerous.

Where possible, we’ll start these pieces with an excerpt from what we said about these players before the Canucks signed them. In this case, we featured DeBrusk in our “Project Petey’s Partner: 11 free agents the Canucks could sign to be Elias Pettersson’s winger” article, and we said:

And now, onto that checklist…

We don’t need to rehash the early offseason’s ongoing dialogue about Elias Pettersson needing more talent on his wings, because it’s a notion that almost everyone in the fanbase and mediasphere agrees on to some extent.

In DeBrusk, who presumably begins the year penciled in on Pettersson’s left wing, the Canucks have definitely added talent.

DeBrusk has played seven seasons in the NHL. In three of those seasons, he’s scored 25 or more goals, including a memorable sophomore output of 27 goals in just 68 games.

In the following 2019/20 season, DeBrusk’s third, he scored 19 goals in 65 games, a step back, but still an impressive pace.

The year after, he only played 41 games and only scored five goals. But he bounced back for a 25-goal season in 2021/22 and a career 27 goals in 64 games in 2022/23.

Sure, he had a down year last year. But DeBrusk still notched 19 goals, and that’s with a pretty low shooting percentage for his standards of 10.4%. His personal history suggests a bounceback to at least 25 goals, and given the likelihood of increased responsibility in Vancouver, where he won’t be lining up behind Brad Marchand.

DeBrusk has only averaged 15:47 of ice-time throughout his career in Boston. Playing alongside Pettersson, he’ll almost certainly be playing more.

A bit of extra good news here is that DeBrusk is particularly effective at 5-on-5, which is where Pettersson needs the most help. In 2023/24, 15 of DeBrusk’s 19 goals came at evens, and that’s a trend that continues back throughout his entire career with limited power play opportunities on the Bruins.

Over the past three seasons combined, DeBrusk’s 1.08 goals-per-even-strength-60 is second on the Bruins behind David Pastrnak, and 33^rd in the entire league. The only current Canuck higher on the list is Nils Höglander, and he might just be lining up on Pettersson’s other wing.

That’s just the goal-scoring side of things, too. DeBrusk is far from a one-trick pony.

He skates well, works the boards well, and creates space and chances for his linemates, though directly making plays is not exactly his thing.

DeBrusk also has the kind of advanced stats profile – a 53.93% xG rate last year, and a 62.08% the year before – that suggests a further statistical breakout is absolutely still possible.

DeBrusk and Pettersson are now in a position to bring out the best in one another, and such a player is probably the number one thing that the Canucks wanted to walk away with from this free agency period.

Despite ample talent, the Canucks’ power play only finished the 2023/24 with the 10^th-best results at 22.7%, a number that slipped all the way down to 13.9% in the playoffs. Simply put, the Canucks’ power play needs to be better.

DeBrusk only scored two power play goals last year, and added eight power play assists. That might not read as a great PP addition, but that can be seen as largely a result of DeBrusk only receiving 1:41 of power play time per game, eighth-most on the team.

Over the past three years combined, DeBrusk slips all the way down to 11^th. Opportunity has been a barrier in his putting up more PP production.
There’s plenty of room for optimism when it comes to the specific kind of contributions that DeBrusk can make on the power play.

The Canucks have struggled to find a net-front presence for their power play, a role that Brock Boeser, of all people, filled with some success this past year. DeBrusk is an excellent net-front presence on the PP and at 5-on-5, something we’ll get back to in a minute.

DeBrusk also shows a penchant for shooting from the bumper slot, which is a facet the Canucks’ power play badly needs. The PP1 just hasn’t been the same since Bo Horvat left, and if DeBrusk can occupy Horvat’s old office on a regular basis, it will go a long way toward the unit becoming as efficient as it can be again.

 

Again, one has to look a little past the numbers to see why DeBrusk could be a major boon to the Canucks’ lackluster penalty kill – ranked just 17^th overall at 79.1% in 2023/24.

On the one hand, DeBrusk only ranked 11^th overall in shorthanded ice-time for the Bruins at 1:36 per game. On the other hand, the Bruins really spread their PK time around last season, and DeBrusk only trailed noted PKer Marchand by 11 seconds a game.

It’s a skill that DeBrusk has reportedly worked hard to develop over the past few years. Speaking of skill, DeBrusk certainly brings more of that to the table than the average PKer, which is why his 27 shorthanded shots over the past three seasons trails only Charlie Coyle on the Bruins, despite Coyle receiving much more overall PK time.

DeBrusk offers the Canucks another multifaceted, dangerous penalty killer to complement a unique that already includes Teddy Blueger, Dakota Joshua, and, at times, Pettersson and JT Miller. The Edmonton Oilers demonstrated the benefits of a PK unit that can push back, and DeBrusk’s speed and talent can help the Canucks do more of that themselves.

 

We mentioned this already, but it bears repeating and focus. DeBrusk isn’t the biggest player in the world, but he uses his size well, primarily on the boards and in front of the net.

Just look at how the Boston offence was directed when DeBrusk was on the ice last season:

As we said, Boeser did an admirable job of working the fronts and sides of the net last season for the Canucks, but Pettersson missed Andrei Kuzmenko there, and the Canucks missed more of a net-front presence in general.

They just signed perhaps the best net-front presence on the market.

Every team wants to get faster, in that no team ever wants to get slower. But the Canucks had an obvious and stated goal to add speed this offseason, especially with Ilya Mikheyev out the door (and never having fully recovered his wheels in the first place, anyway.)

Skating ability is probably DeBrusk’s most notable trait.

It’s the first thing mentioned in any scouting report on him, earning accolades for speed, smoothness, and agility.

It is often said that a player “skates miles.” But DeBrusk literally does, averaging 10.11 miles-per-60, which NHL EDGE has in the 94^th percentile.

DeBrusk’s top speed of 22.15MPH is right around league-average, but he’s in the 91^st percentile for 18-20MPH speed bursts – which suggests that even if he doesn’t have that extra gear, he’s usually moving around at a pretty brisk pace out there.

DeBrusk instantly becomes one of, if not the, best skater at forward for the Canucks.

With that net-front presence and overall goal-scoring ability, DeBrusk could see seen as a late-arriving Kuzmenko replacement. One key difference, especially in head coach Rick Tocchet’s eyes?

DeBrusk takes care of play in his own end.

DeBrusk has an absolutely sparkling set of fancy stats, having never posted an xG% of less than 52%, and only having dipped below a 50% hold of scoring chances and high-danger chances once in his career.

DeBrusk achieves all of this while almost always playing against a much higher quality of competition than his quality of linemates, including a particularly high QoC in 2023/24:

With DeBrusk on his wing, Pettersson has a chance to bounce back both offensively and defensively, and that’s huge for the forward corps as a whole.

The Canucks struggled to score in the playoffs at times, especially when the chips were down.

Of late, DeBrusk has turned into an outright playoff scoring specialist.

Overall, DeBrusk has 27 goals and 47 points in 86 career playoff games, which is about the same scoring pace as his regular season career.

But over the past two seasons, DeBrusk has stepped it up, even as the rest of the Bruins around him have not.

In the 2023 playoffs, DeBrusk put up four goals and six points as the Bruins were upset in seven games.

This past 2024 postseason, DeBrusk managed five goals and 11 points in 13 games through two rounds.

That DeBrusk can score makes him a worthwhile free agency target.

That he can score when it counts is what really seals the deal on this being a shrewd signing.