With the Vancouver Canucks in a fight for their playoff lives, every goal matters. And as the club scratches and claws its way to the finish line of the 2024-25 schedule, it’s finding different ways to grind out results. A total of 15 different players have scored in the team’s past seven games. However, Jake DeBrusk isn’t one of them.
Now, it’s important to note that DeBrusk has picked up assists in three straight games and five of the last six, so the winger is finding ways to contribute. But it’s hard to imagine the Canucks staying in the playoff mix – and even harder to think they can overcome the long odds stacked against them – if one of their leading goal scorers doesn’t find the range again soon.
DeBrusk last found the back of the net in Calgary on March 12th. In the seven games since then, however, it’s a goose egg in the goal column despite registering 16 shots on goal. That number is tied with Pius Suter for the team lead among forwards and is second only to captain Quinn Hughes.
But context matters, here, as eight of those 16 shots came in Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Rangers when DeBrusk and his teammates skated circles around New York but couldn’t convert on the many chances they generated. In the other six games during the slump, DeBrusk has managed just eight shots and hasn’t had more than two in any other game. Since DeBrusk’s last goal, Derek Forbort, Tyler Myers, Nils Aman, Teddy Blueger and Aatu Räty have all cashed in. Drew O’Connor has scored twice.
For a fleeting moment, it looked like DeBrusk had bumped his slump as he crashed the crease in the final minute in New Jersey on Monday. The game-tying goal was eventually credited to Conor Garland, but the play doesn’t happen without DeBrusk standing his ground as the puck clanked off the post and bounced back into the slot. And it must be pointed out that DeBrusk opened the scoring in the shootout that followed as a result of that late game-tying goal. So he has put a puck in the net recently. Just not in the run of play.
DeBrusk has shown this season that he is streaky. So a seven-game drought isn’t shocking. Nor is it totally unexpected. He went the first nine games as a Canucks without scoring. He also went 11 games without finding the range from January 8th through the 29th.
But that was then. This is now. And this is also a team without Elias Pettersson, Nils Höglander and Filip Chytil. The Canucks need the support scoring they have received of late, but they could also really use a few goals from DeBrusk who shares the team lead with Brock Boeser at 23 on the season and leads the Canucks with 11 power play goals.
And that is precisely where the Canucks could use DeBrusk to rediscover his touch right now. 
The team is 0 for 7 on the power play four games into its current six-game road trip. More than that, the Canucks surrendered a shorthanded goal to Casey Cizikas in the first period of Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the New York Islanders. So at absolute crunch time and with virtually no margin for error any more, the Canucks are a net -1 on the power play over their past four games.
Sure, the club is patching together a top unit in the absence of Pettersson, but with Hughes running the show and DeBrusk, Boeser, Conor Garland and rookie Jonathan Lekkerimäki there is still enough at the top of the line-up to cobble together a power play that should be able to make things happen.
In 36 games since January 1st, Jake DeBrusk has only managed a pair of goals at 5-on-5. That is likely a surprise to many. But where he’s been most dangerous is in and around the netfront on the power play. And there’s no reason he can’t have an impact there these days.
DeBrusk has been a good signing for the Canucks and with 10 games to go, it’s hard to imagine he won’t get to 25 goals in his first season in Vancouver. At $5.5M, that’s what he was brought in to do and for the most part he has delivered. 
But as the Canucks roll into Columbus to start their final 10-game push to the finish line, this is when the team needs its top players to rise to the challenge. With a roster filled with gaps due to injuries, Jake DeBrusk is at the top of the list the team is looking at to deliver offence these days.
The beauty of a player like DeBrusk is that he’s shown he can turn his streaks around in a hurry. And if he can get on another goal-scoring roll, it could play a huge factor in the Canucks chances to remain in the playoff hunt.
But daylight is fading and DeBrusk can’t leave it much longer. He’s shown in the past that he plays his best hockey in the playoffs. If he wants to prove that again this spring, the Canucks need him now more than ever.
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