When Jake DeBrusk goes, so too do the Boston Bruins.
And right now, DeBrusk is going.
It was a bumpy regular season for the fourth-year winger, who struggled to build momentum and found himself getting healthy scratched on a few occasions.
But he’s off to a smashing start this postseason, scoring goals in both Games 1 and 2 of the Boston Bruins’ first-round series against the Washington Capitals.
The end of the regular season and start of the playoffs offered a natural opportunity for the 24-year-old to turn the page, and he’s done it.
“I think there’s always a couple of times during the year when there is reset opportunities,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said Tuesday over Zoom. “For Jake, he very well could have said to himself it doesn’t matter now (how the regular season went), it’s whatever happens in the playoffs. …
“That was the message to some of the guys who maybe weren’t happy with their regular seasons, I know Jake falls into that category: Help the team win. That might be a number of different ways. For him, he has the ability to be a wild card in terms of scoring goals for us. He has done it in the playoffs, he has done it in the regular season, he’s doing it now.
“So, good for Jake. And they’re not lucky, he’s gone to the front of the net, he shot the puck, so they weren’t just fluky goals, they were well-earned. He’s invested, that’s what we need, good for Jake.”
DeBrusk has been finding success on multiple lines, playing Game 1 on the fourth unit with Curtis Lazar and Chris Wagner before skating with Charlie Coyle and Nick Ritchie in Game 2. If he can continue to produce while being able to play anywhere in the bottom nine, it’ll add a key layer of depth for the Bruins.
DeBrusk and the Bruins will look to keep rolling Wednesday in Game 3. Puck drop from TD Garden is set for 6:30 p.m. ET on NESN, with pregame coverage beginning at 5:30.
