There’s still plenty of ongoing debate to be had about which remaining veterans should be traded by the Vancouver Canucks this summer, as the rebuild continues and ideally picks up some steam. But if we’re talking, instead, about the veterans most likely to be traded, there’s far less to argue about.

The veteran most likely to be traded this offseason, by whoever takes over as Vancouver GM, is Jake DeBrusk.

DeBrusk stands out from the crowd for a number of reasons. At 29 years old, he’s one of the elder statesmen on the team, but still on the right side of 30. Unlike some of the other vets, his salary is well within the reasonable range at a $5.5 million AAV, which is about average money for a second line forward these days. That all should make him easier for the Canucks to move, if not likelier.

Then there are those comments DeBrusk made in the wake of the Canucks’ earlier veteran trading that made it sound as if he was unwilling to stick around through a rebuild. He later walked those comments back, but they were still made in the first place.

The Canucks will be shopping DeBrusk around based on the fact that he’s scored at least 19 goals in each of the past five seasons. On a macro level, he appears very consistent. But those who have watched DeBrusk more closely in his Boston and Vancouver careers will know that “consistent” is not a word that should ever be applied to DeBrusk, and it’s certainly not something that can be applied to this most recent 2025-26 season.

Yes, DeBrusk scored 23 goals, leading the Canucks in that category. But he got to that number in an incredibly odd and unique fashion.

Of DeBrusk’s 23 goals, a full 19 came on the power play. In other words, just four of his goals were scored at even-strength throughout the entire season – an average of about one every 20 games!

That’s not just a strange season, it was record-breaking. Apparently, this gave DeBrusk the record for “most power play goals relative to even-strength goals” by a 20-goal scorer in NHL history. Just don’t expect this record to be celebrated as much as Kiefer Sherwood’s hit parade.

It’s a weird enough statline to wonder about the question in the headline, that being what such a season has done to DeBrusk’s trade value.

And, right off the bat, we’ll say that it probably hasn’t impacted it nearly as much as the 2025-26 campaign might have impacted the value of other Vancouver veterans.

It’s important here to remember what DeBrusk is. He is, and always has been, a complementary player. Even though he can occasionally resemble a pseudo-power forward, DeBrusk is absolutely not a play-driver. He is not a line-leader. He is someone who is expected to ride shotgun with a talented centre and finish off plays for them.

In Vancouver, that centre was supposed to be Elias Pettersson. And, indeed, the two have found some chemistry and success together. But Pettersson’s own lack of production, especially at even-strength, have had an obvious detrimental effect on DeBrusk’s ability to score regularly.

But no GM in their right mind would target DeBrusk as someone to build a forward line around. Those interested in him will still be interested in him as a complementary piece to a pre-established top-six centre, and from that perspective, his 2025-26 performance looks both salvageable and understandable, within the context.

The Canucks were absolutely dreadful at even-strength in 2025-26. They both allowed the most goals against at five-on-five (210) and scored the fewest (131). A team-wide scoring depression like that will impact all players, but especially a player so reliant on linemates as is DeBrusk. A complementary player can’t perform if there’s not all that much to complement.

The Vancouver power play, on the other hand, was at the very least middling. It finished at 14^th overall in the league at 21.8%. And of course, because of that, DeBrusk performed better there. A lot better. Of the Canucks’ 51 power play goals on the season, DeBrusk scored 19, or 37% of them.

And so, the narrative that various GMs will sell themselves on as they debate trading for DeBrusk this offseason is easy enough to imagine. It’s that the Canucks’ overall team struggles were well outside DeBrusk’s control this year, but couldn’t help but devastate his numbers at even-strength. But then, in those areas of the game where the team did not struggle quite so mightily, as on the power play, DeBrusk still performed about the same as he usually does in any given season – if not better. These 19 goals were easily the most of DeBrusk’s career, beating out his previous best of 14 by a considerable margin.

Of all the veterans currently playing in Vancouver, DeBrusk should be the one that other teams are most easily able to convince themselves will bounce back in a better environment. That he performed so differently at even-strength as he did on the power play is almost evidence of this. The Canucks’ PP was a better environment this season, and DeBrusk performed a lot better there.

And if there’s one area that contending teams are always looking for help, it’s on the power play. It should be fairly easy for another front office to reason both that DeBrusk is a solution to their power play shortcomings, and that he’ll perform better at even-strength on a better team. There’s a bit of a “have your cake and eat it, too” appeal here, as in the possibility of getting both 2024-25 even-strength DeBrusk and 2025-26 power play DeBrusk in one fell swoop.

Of course, those more familiar with DeBrusk’s game over the long-term know that he’s far too streaky and inconsistent to ever actually put it together like that. But the offseason is a time to hope and dream, and all it takes is one other team to believe it enough to actually make a trade.

It’s because of this narrative that we believe DeBrusk’s trade value is still relatively high. And by that, we mean that there should be real interest around the league, as there was two summers ago when DeBrusk was a UFA with multiple suitors.

As far as actually putting a theoretical value to his name, that’s of course a little trickier. One wants to set the bare minimum bar at the second and third round picks that Conor Garland just returned. DeBrusk is a year younger than Garland, and just had a way better season. Plus, his contract carries both a cheaper cap hit and an earlier expiry of 2031. Garland’s own six-year, $6 million extension doesn’t even start until next season.

And the Canucks might be willing to accept something like that, just to clear cap and roster space for the next generation. But then, the offseason is a lot longer than the pre-deadline scramble, and they’ve got a lot more room to negotiate.

One hopes that DeBrusk’s $5.5 million cap hit looks even more appealing after another round of unrestrained free agent spending brings it even closer to the league average. If the Canucks wait until later in the summer, and if they manage to take some advantage of a team still desperate to add some power play potency to their roster, then there’s a real possibility that DeBrusk returns even more.

Is a first round pick entirely off the table? That might be a case of dreaming too big. But then, if the Canucks were willing to get a bit clever – as in, taking back a shorter-term cap dump, or perhaps attaching a later pick to someone like DeBrusk – then maybe that does indeed open up the possibility of a truly high-value return.

DeBrusk’s season was undoubtedly strange. But not strange enough to damage his trade value all that badly.