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Jake DeBrusk eager to use last Canucks season as a lesson

Photo credit: Daily Faceoff Vancouver

By Elijah Ford

Sep 18, 2026, 16:30 EDTUpdated: Sep 18, 2026, 16:18 EDT

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Jake DeBrusk is done looking in the rearview mirror at last year, but he also doesn’t want his team to forget the lessons learned.

DeBrusk and the Vancouver Canucks had a frustrating 2025-26 campaign, to say the least. The veteran winger scored a career-low three five-on-five goals as the team sank to the bottom of the NHL standings. But as Vancouver opened training camp Thursday, DeBrusk made it clear that he’s not interested in carrying that frustration into a new season. Instead, the veteran forward is hoping to use what he learned from last year’s struggles to become a more consistent player and a better leader for the Canucks’ next generation.

“Nobody wanted what happened to happen last year, but there’s no use in thinking about what happened now,” DeBrusk said. “This is day 1 of training camp. Everyone’s excited and in a good mood, and we’re gonna try to get through this thing together.”

That experience, DeBrusk said, taught him lots about how he responds when things aren’t going according to plan. The 29-year-old admitted that last season tested the team mentally, especially as losses piled up and disappointment from underperformance festered in the locker room. Rather than allowing those moments to linger, DeBrusk believes the answer is to stay present and look to the group around him for support during inevitable trying times.

“You learn a lot about yourself,” he said of last season. “We’re all human beings, but the best way to do it is by being together. You can’t go through this alone.”

For DeBrusk, one of the biggest lessons from last season was learning to stay focused on what he can control. Coming off a season where he finished with the league’s second-worst goals-above-expected rate, according to MoneyPuck, DeBrusk wants to make sure his overall game doesn’t disappear simply because the puck isn’t going in.

“I think the biggest thing was trying to figure out what made it work for me throughout my entire career,” DeBrusk said. “What are my keystones of what my game is so that even when pucks aren’t going in the net, which seems to happen sometimes in streaks, my game is where it needs to be that I can help this team in different ways.”

That mindset seems to have influenced DeBrusk’s offseason. Rather than trying to completely reinvent his game heading into his 10th NHL season, he instead said he focused on sharpening the tools that have made him successful throughout his career. He worked on his shot, particularly shooting off the rush, while also focusing on getting his speed back and maintaining consistency in the gym.

“It wasn’t necessarily anything crazy I tried to drastically change. I mean, I still have confidence in myself,” DeBrusk said.

DeBrusk knows there will be stretches when the puck doesn’t bounce his way, but he wants those stretches to have less of an effect on his overall impact on the ice. If he can continue skating, competing, creating chances, and playing within Vancouver’s structure, he believes he can still help the team even when the goals aren’t coming.

“I want to be the best version of myself every single game,” he said. “Easy to say, hard to do.”

That same philosophy goes beyond DeBrusk and into what the Canucks are trying to establish as a team. After spending much of last season struggling to find consistency, the team wants to build their identity around preparation, structure, and buying into the game plan every day. Head coach Manny Malhotra explained this in depth when he spoke about the difference between losing games and playing losing hockey. For DeBrusk, there is a significant difference between losing as a cohesive unit and losing because a team simply abandoned its structure.

“There’s two ways to lose,” he said. “When you buy in, you’re playing your system, and you’re doing it, and sometimes the puck doesn’t go your way … but you played the game plan, you did everything that was asked, and you gave it your all.”

That’s the standard DeBrusk wants to carry into the new season. Vancouver will inevitably face adversity again. The difference will hopefully be in how the Canucks respond when it arrives. For DeBrusk, the lesson isn’t that there is a simple fix for what went wrong. It’s that consistency, preparation, and staying committed to the things within his control can help prevent a difficult stretch from snowballing into something bigger.

Last season gave DeBrusk a sobering reminder that adversity is unavoidable in the NHL. Now, he’s hoping the lessons that came with it can help him — and the Canucks — handle it differently the next time it arrives.

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