A ‘freed’ Jake DeBrusk is ready to ‘put it all together' - and elevate Bruins’ top-6 unit into a matchup nightmare

October 17 is usually a day that Jake DeBrusk dreads. 

Well, at least as far as hockey is concerned.

So far in his NHL career, DeBrusk has skated in two games for the B’s on that date — posting zero points while getting tagged with a minus-3 rating. Not exactly the kind of stat line one wants to compile on their birthday. 

"If you look at my track record, I haven't had good days on my birthday in hockey, so I wanted to break the curse," DeBrusk said.

Granted, it seemed as though DeBrusk’s hopes of snapping that string of bad luck on Oct. 17 was going to be out of the question this year, with an upper-body injury — suffered just 11 minutes into the new season — expected to put him on the shelf for the time being.

Jim Montgomery’s latest prognosis on Sunday morning was that the B’s winger was going to be out about “10 days” - a bump in the road, but far from a season-altering ailment.

It took the B’s bench boss all of 24 hours to change his timeline for his top-six forward.

"Right after the morning skate. ... (the medical staff) were saying he's been feeling good,” Montgomery said of DeBrusk. “I asked him, do you think you can go and do you want to give it a try in warmup?' He had no soreness after skating and shooting a lot of pucks this morning, so we got pretty optimistic.”

Given his quick healing, DeBrusk figured he’d be in play for Tuesday’s road game against Ottawa in the second leg of a back-to-back slate. But when tempted with the offer to return as early as Monday night’s daunting test against the Panthers, DeBrusk couldn’t resist. 

“It was kind of funny,” DeBrusk said. “I actually didn't know if I was gonna be playing on Thursday or Tuesday and then I felt good this morning. I was thinking possibly tomorrow and then I got asked, ‘Why not tonight? And I was like, 'Yeah, why not tonight?'”

For all of the narratives and discourse surrounding DeBrusk and the trade-request saga that loomed over him last season, the now-content forward has spent most of this fall stressing his desire for a clean slate in 2022-23.

And what better way for him to turn words into action than to finally, at long last, make it a birthday worth celebrating — especially on the ice with his teammates.

Going from injured lineup scratch to top-six stalwart in short order, DeBrusk made the most of his return to game action on Monday night against Florida, scoring a pair of goals and recording a primary assist to pace the B’s to a 5-3 win against the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners. 

“Well, you're not gonna have three-point nights every night. I would love that,” DeBrusk said. “I think everybody would. But I think the speed aspect of my game has always been the thing that drives everything — whether it's generating chances, and you need some lucky bounces, you need some help and things like that.

“But I think that's kind of a good starting point, obviously a start like that. ... But it's one of those things that you kind of just try to build. It's nice to have a good start and just kind of move from there.”

Sure, DeBrusk was wise to temper expectations when it comes to his daily offensive output, given the fact that most of his career has been marked with peaks and valleys as it pertains to his scoring contributions.

But DeBrusk thriving in a top-six role isn’t exactly a revelation, nor is it something that is born out of a coaching change.  As noted by 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Ty Anderson, since DeBrusk was first slotted up to Patrice Bergeron’s line back on Feb. 24, 2022, the B’s fleet-footed forward has buried 18 goals and posted 29 points in 39 games. 

Brad Marchand’s eventual return to the lineup next month will help elevate Bergeron’s line into the two-way buzzsaw that it’s been for years, but DeBrusk is no slouch on the right side — not since he regained his scoring touch this past winter. 

Monday stood as a prime example of the value that an engaged DeBrusk can bring to Boston’s top-six grouping, be it his finishing ability or his north-south acceleration.

DeBrusk might have given Boston a jolt just 21 seconds into the game when his first shot of the night sailed past Sergei Bobrovsky to put the B’s on the board, but his true talents were put on display in the second period — when he put on the afterburners to turn a relatively harmless sequence into a Grade-A scoring chance. 

As soon as the puck skipped past Aaron Ekblad following a faceoff in Boston’s zone, DeBrusk saw red — soaring past Florida’s pair of blueliners and carrying the biscuit down the slot with a head of steam. But as Gustav Forsling tried to seal him off, DeBrusk instinctively hit a trailing Bergeron with a picture-perfect, no-look feed, giving Boston a 2-1 lead. 

Even DeBrusk’s empty-net strike with 1:03 left on the clock drew rave reviews from his coach, who has found out in short order that DeBrusk’s talents go far beyond just his speed and quick shot. 

"I was shocked at how smart a player he is and his ability to make plays,” Montgomery said. “Like I knew he could score goals. I knew he could skate. I didn't know he can make as many plays as he does and I think his all-around game is continuing to develop. … "Not a lot of people know how to protect that puck, spin around and know that they have that lane. 

“Like his hockey sense and how he sees the ice is well above the average hockey player in the NHL. I thought he was a speed, scoring winger. He's much more than that.”

As we’ve noted countless times already, DeBrusk may not be the most talented forward entrenched in Boston’s lineup — but he’s certainly the most consequential. At the end of the season, 40+ goals are to be expected from the likes of David Pastrnak, as is another campaign in which Bergeron displays continued defensive brilliance. 

But if DeBrusk can stick in that 1RW spot and give this team 30 or more tallies, it will make an already imposing top-six grouping nearly impossible to account for over a 60-minute span — not with a Hall-Krejci-Pastrnak line still capable of shredding their defensive assignments into mincemeat. 

Of course, the challenge for DeBrusk will be to maintain this level of intensity for a full 82-game season, a hurdle that he has not always cleared in previous years.

But this isn’t the same DeBrusk as the one who found himself tripping down the depth chart in years past. But based on the now-26-year-old forward’s musings following Monday’s win, those struggles in the past are the reason why he’s in line to succeed here in the present. 

That should thrill the Bruins. And terrify the rest of the league. 

“I think the biggest thing for myself is confidence — obviously new message and new focuses,” DeBrusk said. “I think that every player tries no matter what coach is there, but I obviously like what he's saying. And it's been working for these three games. And it's one of those things that you want to buy into and obviously make good first impressions and go from there and just build relationships. 

“So that's kind of how I approach that in the sense I think it just goes around my overall game. I think last year freed me just in general of going through the ups and downs.  It's one of those things where it's time to put it all together and it's one thing to do it for one game, but we got 79 left. So it's a challenge tomorrow night against a good Ottawa team and just keep on rolling from there."