‘Perfect storm’: Canucks’ Jake DeBrusk unhappy with five-on-five production

VANCOUVER — The only road runner Jake DeBrusk knew when he was little was Wile E. Coyote’s cartoon nemesis. So it was for most hockey players born outside of Quebec in the 1990s.

Yvan “The Roadrunner” Cournoyer, the dynamo who won 10 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1960s and ’70s, was a name foreign to DeBrusk until the Vancouver Canuck recently saw the Hall-of-Famer on Sportsnet’s list of single-season goal-scorers with an historic percentage of power-play goals.

Among players who have scored at least 15 goals during a National Hockey League season, only Cournoyer, with 16 of his 18 goals on the power play during his sophomore campaign 50 years ago, has had a more lopsided share of PPGs than DeBrusk has this season.

The 29-year-old winger’s 19^th goal of the season, scored on deflection during the Canucks’ 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Saturday, was his 16^th on the power play. 

DeBrusk’s 84.2-per-cent share of power-play goals trails only Cournoyer’s 88.9 in NHL history.

“I looked him up; he actually had a really good career,” DeBrusk, who grew up in Edmonton, said after Monday’s Canuck practice. “But when I first heard about him, it didn’t ring a bell. People in Montreal, don’t hate me. I was there for Guy Lafleur’s standing ovation (before he passed away in 2022) and that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a game.”

Before signing a seven-year, $38.5-million contract to join the Canucks two summers ago, DeBrusk spent his first seven NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins so, he said, has great respect for the Canadiens organization.

But with just three even-strength goals during a season-gone-wrong in Vancouver, DeBrusk would rather not be on this list with Cournoyer.

“Would you?” he asked. “If I pump two more in at five on five, my percentage (of power-play goals) goes down, so it would make it a little better. But it’s been that type of a year. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve played over 600 games and I’ve been a five-on-five scorer my entire career. Except this is the year where it’s gone history-making — backhanded history, I guess.”

Since entering the NHL in 2017-18, DeBrusk was 77^th in the league with 166 goals through last season. His 44 power-play goals ranked 70^th, so his scoring was in perfect balance.

Excluding the pandemic-shortened season in 2021, DeBrusk had averaged 23 goals per season and never had fewer than 11 at five on five. This year, three. His five-on-five shooting percentage of 2.75 looks like a misprint, missing a one before the two. His career five-on-five scoring rate is 11.5 per cent.

But he has 16 goals on the power play, tied for fourth in the NHL, and can hit the 20-goal mark for the season when the Vegas Golden Knights visit Rogers Arena on Tuesday.

Special teams frequently decide games, so it’s not like power-play goals are empty calories. But they’re not as fulfilling as even-strength ones.

Why hasn’t DeBrusk’s play on the power play, where he has scored the great majority of his goals from around the crease, translated to five-on-five scoring?

“I’m trying to figure that out, too,” he said. “I think the biggest thing, if this answers your question, is pucks are arriving (at the net on the power play). Pucks are getting there; that’s the biggest difference. I’m actually in the right positions when the pucks are coming versus five-on-five.

“Maybe I haven’t been in that position enough, or when I am, the pucks aren’t arriving. It’s been both. Shots aren’t coming. Usually, I’m the one shooting at five on five, funny enough. It’s always one of those things as a net front player, you can go to the net 10 times and nothing arrives. But then you don’t go the 11th time, and that’s when the puck is sitting there waiting for you. So you have to keep going to the well. But when you’re the only one on the line shooting, whether that’s just by position or how it goes, some nights are like that. But, you know, I need shots there because that’s where I have success. That’s where we have success. Worst-case scenario, I go to the net and I’m there for the screen and someone else scores. That’s not a bad worst-case scenario.”

With just 22 wins in 76 games, including eight in 39 games at Rogers Arena, the Canucks have experienced a lot of worst-case scenarios this season.

Notoriously hard on himself, DeBrusk said teammates haven’t been chirping him about his disparity in goal types.

“Actually, if anything, whenever we get a power play, guys are like: ‘It’s your time, here we go,’” he said. “I don’t think a lot of guys really have much to stand on in terms of five-on-five goals. I get chirped for a lot of other things. But if someone says you can’t score five-on-five or I read about that, I just laugh. 

“Look at my record. What am I shooting (at five on five), under three per cent? I think that’s rare. My track record, it’s been mostly five-on-five scoring. I think it’s been a perfect storm of events for this to happen. I think I’ve done it enough to know I can. It just hasn’t happened this year. Like, there’s no method to the madness.”

ICE CHIPS — Losers in regulation in eight of their last nine games, the Canucks practised Monday without goalie Kevin Lankinen (out day to day with an upper-body injury, according to coach Adam Foote) and winger Evander Kane, who has been managing an undisclosed injury. Defenceman Filip Hronek had another in a series of maintenance days. . . Injured centre Filip Chytil (facial fractures) went on the ice in full gear at the end of practice, but Foote said the plan is to try to incorporate him in a couple of full team practices, not games, before the Canucks’ season ends next week.