Jake DeBrusk has the talent of a top-six forward, a role he’s been in for most of his tenure as a Bruin, often playing to the left—sometimes the right, of David Krejci.
But the elevated play of Craig Smith and the trade deadline acquisition of Taylor Hall bumped DeBrusk down the depth chart and into a bottom-six role.
DeBrusk’s play didn’t help his cause either.
The 24-year old finished the season with five goals, two of those coming in his final 20 games of the regular season.
Even with goals hard to come by, DeBrusk was failing to do the little things expected of players on the third and fourth lines.
As DeBrusk admitted, hockey wasn’t fun for him.
“The games aren’t fun when you’re struggling,” he said. “I’ve been struggling, and it’s not fun when you’re struggling.”
But with the Stanley Cup Playoffs comes a second chance. A chance to wipe the slate clean and leave whatever happened in the regular season in the past.
DeBrusk has done that, opening the scoring for the Bruins in each of their first two playoff games against the Washington Capitals.
The Bruins tied their series at one game a piece Monday with a comeback overtime win in Washington. DeBrusk was arguably the Bruins best forward.
In Game 1, DeBrusk found himself on the fourth line with Curtis Lazar and Chris Wagner. His play on Saturday earned him a promotion to the third line with Charlie Coyle and Nick Ritchie for Game 2.
“Jake was good the other night and talked to him as well. We were like ‘if you keep pushing the second effort, working on your reloads and just second effort hockey, your minutes are going to increase' and they did tonight,” said head coach Bruce Cassidy.
With Sean Kurlay moving back down to center the fourth line, DeBrusk’s promotion pushed Coyle back to the middle, a move that worked out well for all involved.
“I talked to Charlie about getting back in the middle. When I moved him to the wing I didn’t think it would be forever and it wasn’t. We felt now was the time, free him up a little more to attack and dish and I think Jake responded very well to it,” said Cassidy.
After being held off the scoresheet in Game 1, it was only a matter of time before the Bruins got production from their top-six.
Goals by Patrice Bergeron, Taylor Hall and Brad Marchand’s winner 39 seconds into the extra frame, continued the trend of the Bruins new look top-six paving the way.
But now, the Bruins are getting scoring from outside their top-six, and boy, has that been missed.
We’ve seen this movie before with DeBrusk.
As streaky as they come, when he gets going, he really gets going. In the process of finding his own game, it appears DeBrusk has gone and found the 2019 playoff version of Coyle.
“I thought Charlie Coyle looked dominate out there,” said Cassidy. “Now you’ve got three lines that are buzzing and creating offense.”
The Bruins will head home for Game 3 and Game 4 Wednesday and Friday. With that, Cassidy can control the matchups, offensive zone starts and all those added bonuses of getting the last change.
No Capitals forwards saw more five-on-five ice time against the Coyle line than Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin, a lopsided matchup Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette clearly wanted to take advantage of.
However, it was the Coyle line that held the advantage, outscoring the Backstrom line five-on-five 1-0.
"I thought he played hard and played like Jake played in the past,” said Cassidy. “Obviously, we’re going to be a better team when he does that.”
If Coyle and DeBrusk give the Bruins similar production to what Coyle and Marcus Johansson gave them in their run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, a better team they will be.
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