The last time that Jake DeBrusk ran into the Toronto Maple Leafs in the postseason, things went south quick for the Original Six club.
Just 21-years old at the outset of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, DeBrusk didn’t resemble a fresh-faced rookie in his postseason debut, tallying five goals and recording seven points in Boston’s seven-game series against Toronto — culminating in a two-goal performance at TD Garden in a deciding Game 7.
The winger’s second go-around in postseason play has been considerably more muted — much to the energetic winger’s chagrin.
Through the first five games of Boston’s rematch with Toronto this spring, DeBrusk had only managed to record one assist with a minus-2 rating. While he didn’t miss any time following a dangerous cross-check to the face delivered by Nazem Kadri in Game 2, it became evident DeBrusk was knocked down a peg from the strike — and his production in the O-zone quickly started to lag.
In the three games following Kadri’s cross-check, DeBrusk only managed to land eight shots on goal, with just one attempt making it through to Frederik Andersen during Boston’s 6-4 win in Game 4 on Wednesday.
DeBrusk’s offensive contributions were negated in Boston’s victory, with that one shot on goal generated from beyond the blue line — a whopping 69 feet away from the Leafs’ net midway through the first period.
(DeBrusk’s event map from Game 4 — not the areas of the ice where you usually see No. 74 attempt some shots.)
Boston’s big guns up front like Brad Marchand (one goal, three points) and David Pastrnak (two goals) still managed to do some heavy lifting in that victory, but for a streaky scorer like DeBrusk, being on the outside looking in at the box score is still a tough pill to swallow.
“It’d be nice,” DeBrusk said last Thursday of getting on the scoresheet. “It’s obviously something that I’m looking to do. In saying that, I think this time of the year is perfect; it’s one of those things where it doesn't matter who’s scoring as long as we win, that’s the beauty of that.
“But in saying that, I would like to find my game. I’ve had some zeros and some hundreds in there, so I just have to find some consistency in general and do things that make me successful.”
When DeBrusk is at his best, he’s certainly not lofting in shots from 69 feet away from the net, that’s for sure. Not even from 35 feet. Rather, it’s when the pugnacious winger is mucking things up right on a netminder’s doorstep — collapsing the defensive structure in the low slot by mucking things up, extending zone time by cycling behind the opposition's net and using his speed to bring the puck into Grade-A ice in short order.
It’s a simple, cliched formula — Get pucks in deep. Get pucks on net — but one that DeBrusk started to adhere to once again on Sunday afternoon. And as simple as it may be, the results quickly followed.
While a 27-goal scorer like DeBrusk had an average shot distance of 28 feet during the regular season, the postseason has been a bit of a different story — with his average shot distance measuring out at below the league average at 32 feet.
But Game 6 was a different story. Of DeBrusk’s five total shot attempts in Boston’s 4-2 win, the average distance away from Toronto’s goal measured out to just over 21 feet — leading to a number of Grade-A chances generated down low.
One of those attempts, delivered from just 11 feet out, finally put the winger on the board and stood as the eventual game-winning tally in Game 6 — as DeBrusk capped off a give-and-go sequence with David Krejci by deflecting a feed past Andersen before (in typical DeBrusk fashion) spinning into the end boards.
Krejci and DeBrusk team up —and the Bruins take a 3-1 lead. pic.twitter.com/RNkrso0bn5
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 21, 2019
