In hockey, a lot can change in a hurry.
It only takes a couple of weeks to orchestrate a late-season surge and a Cinderella run through the postseason. Or an outright collapse.
Compress it down even further — and a season, a contention window and career legacies can all be dictated off the actions of a single shift and a few brief seconds of action.
So given that warped distortion of time, a full year might feel like close to an eternity for Jake DeBrusk, especially given the circumstances at play in regards to his current arrangements with Boston.
As expected, DeBrusk didn’t divulge much in terms of new insight when asked on Tuesday about whether his standing trade request (in place since last summer) has been rescinded, especially in wake of his resurgent contributions on the stat sheet.
“Again, I can't comment on that as of now,” DeBrusk noted. “I mean, it's one of those things that I'm focused on winning the Stanley Cup with this team. It's one of those things where there are only three games left and the playoffs are approaching. And that's my main focus right now. I'm not thinking about anything else.”
Granted, while most of the narrative surrounding DeBrusk and his wishes for a clean slate have centered on his sedentary status in Boston, even the 25-year-old winger would be the first to note that things have indeed changed in a hurry over the last year.
And most of it for the better.
Beyond just the production that has percolated from the streaky scorer since getting slotted up to Boston’s top line (now up to 17 goals in his last 32 games), DeBrusk has found solace in a return to normalcy — both on the ice and away from the game of hockey.
At the time when DeBrusk submitted his trade request, TD Garden had welcomed full-capacity crowds back into the B’s barn for all over a week-plus of postseason action — with most of the previous 15 months inundated with quarantine restrictions, empty arenas, a bout with COVID and other roadblocks that weighed heavily on the young forward.
“It's just one of those things where you're just quarantined off,” DeBrusk said of the struggles during those COVID-impacted campaigns. “There are no interactions, there are no fans. There's noise in the building that you know is fake, stuff like that. I think they did a great job of trying to make it as best a situation as possible. It's just hard to compete with the real thing.”
These days, things are a lot different — as evidenced by the chorus of cheers raining down on DeBrusk after batting a puck past Sergei Bobrovsky on Tuesday night.
“It's a different change, just in pretty much everything,” DeBrusk said. “Just kind of how frustrating it was at the end of last year, and obviously was not happy with anything that was going on on the ice. And it's definitely a different moment right now. …. I think it's just a matter of life being normal again.”
Of course, DeBrusk’s current situation is far from normal — be it his future in the coming years (especially in wake of that new two-year extension), his reworked spot at right wing on Boston's top line and … frankly, this extended scoring salvo that has yet to be hampered by a long-standing lull.
But for Bruce Cassidy, the positive returns put forth over the last few months can’t just be chalked up to extended reps next to Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. DeBrusk himself needed to buy into such a role, even after his wishes for a trade weren't granted back in March.
“I think a major turning point is when we put him up with Bergy and Marsh — we had a long conversation with him about, 'Hey, this is the expectation.’ So that was in Seattle — I remember in the hallway in that beautiful new arena," Cassidy said. "We had a chat and I think Bergy and Marsh both grabbed him as well and said, 'Okay, let's make this work for the good of the team.' And Jake has — he's done his part.
“So that was certainly a turning point. Now the deadline or not, only he can answer that — what was going through his mind in terms of leaving or staying. … There's a certain ask of him and he's done his part. He's done a really good job of making that line be productive. He's certainly done his share.”
For his efforts at righting the ship and re-establishing himself as a top-six regular, DeBrusk was named as a finalist for the 2022 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy — handed out annually to the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication.
(For the sake of transparency, I didn’t include DeBrusk in my top-three selections for Bruins’ nominees, opting to instead vote for David Pastrnak, Charlie Coyle and Erik Haula.)
Granted, even if DeBrusk and his situation may not exactly fit the mold of previous Masterton Trophy winners, it’s hard to not be impressed with how both player and team have managed to forge ahead through a pretty awkward situation — and both come out on the winning side (at least for now).
Who knows what the future holds for DeBrusk, especially once the 2021-22 campaign finally wraps up.
Indeed, a lot can change in a hurry in this sport. So for now, DeBrusk is living in the moment, and the Bruins are reaping the benefits.
"That's the biggest question mark with me is consistency. And that's something that every player in this league wants,” DeBrusk acknowledged. “It's impossible to be at your best every night and all the cliches with that, but it was more of a focus for me to just try to stay consistent with my energy this year — my energy and my effort, I think was probably the thing that I focused on the most and you try different things obviously and wasn't necessarily perfect.
“I wouldn't say it was a really consistent year, but probably since around the deadline, I think it's been pretty consistent. And I've been trying to keep it that way and trying to build and get better. And I give credit to my teammates as well. We all want to be consistent as a team, trying to build for something here, something special. It’s just about buying in at that point.”