Vancouver Canucks<\/a>\u2018 games have ceased to matter, is a doozy. He has five goals in his last seven games, with his latest on Saturday against the Utah Mammoth continuing a five-game point streak.<\/p>\nRemarkably, all five goals have come on the power play. Or, in DeBrusk\u2019s case, that isn\u2019t remarkable at all: almost all of his goals this season have come on the power play.<\/p>\n
Those five power play goals have brought DeBrusk to 16 on the season, tied for third in the NHL with Leon Draisaitl and Kirill Kaprizov. It\u2019s surprising that any Canuck is top three in any statistical category in the NHL this season, except perhaps for Elias Pettersson leading all NHL forwards in blocked shots \u2014 good for Pettersson, but also a sign of how under siege the Canucks have been all season.<\/p>\n
The only difference between DeBrusk and the two superstars he\u2019s tied with is that Draisaitl and Kaprizov have a total of 35 and 40 goals, respectively, and DeBrusk has 19.<\/p>\n
With 16 of his 19 goals coming on the power play, that puts DeBrusk in some unique company.<\/p>\n
I took all of the players in NHL history who scored at least 14 power play goals, and looked at those who scored at least three-quarters (75%) of their goals on the power play. I\u2019ll be honest: it was going to be 15 power play goals, but then I saw former Canuck Rick Lanz would make the list if I included 14 power play goals, and decided to expand my criteria so he could be on the chart with fellow former Canuck Adrian Aucoin.<\/p>\n
The result: just 12 players in NHL history who had three-quarters of their goals on the power play while scoring at least 14 power play goals.<\/p>\n
PlayerTeamSeasonTotal GoalsPP Goals% of PP Goals<\/p>\n
Yvan Cournoyer<\/p>\n
MTL<\/p>\n
1965-66<\/p>\n
18<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
88.9%<\/p>\n
Jake DeBrusk<\/p>\n
VAN<\/p>\n
2025-26<\/p>\n
19<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
84.2%<\/p>\n
Camille Henry<\/p>\n
NYR<\/p>\n
1953-54<\/p>\n
24<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
83.3%<\/p>\n
Yvan Cournoyer<\/p>\n
MTL<\/p>\n
1966-67<\/p>\n
25<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
80.0%<\/p>\n
Dion Phaneuf<\/p>\n
CGY<\/p>\n
2005-06<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
80.0%<\/p>\n
Adrian Aucoin<\/p>\n
VAN<\/p>\n
1998-99<\/p>\n
23<\/p>\n
18<\/p>\n
78.2%<\/p>\n
Rick Lanz<\/p>\n
VAN<\/p>\n
1983-84<\/p>\n
18<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
77.8%<\/p>\n
Andy Delmore<\/p>\n
NSH<\/p>\n
2002-03<\/p>\n
18<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
77.8%<\/p>\n
Rob Brown<\/p>\n
HFD, CHI<\/p>\n
1991-92<\/p>\n
21<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
76.2%<\/p>\n
Scott Stevens<\/p>\n
WSH<\/p>\n
1984-85<\/p>\n
21<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
76.2%<\/p>\n
Patrik Laine<\/p>\n
MTL<\/p>\n
2024-25<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
15<\/p>\n
75.0%<\/p>\n
Dave Andreychuk<\/p>\n
TBL<\/p>\n
2002-03<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
15<\/p>\n
75.0%<\/p>\n
Aside from providing some prime \u201cLet\u2019s remember some guys\u201d material, this list gives us some context for DeBrusk\u2019s season. By scoring 84.2% of his goals on the power play, he ranks second behind the great Yvan Cournoyer for the highest ratio of power play goals to total goals in NHL history.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk won\u2019t be catching Cournoyer for the highest ratio, barring a miracle. He would have to score eight more power play goals in the Canucks\u2019 remaining six games, without a single goal in any other situation, to tie Cournoyer, and nine power play goals to pass him.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk has been as close to a pure power play specialist as the NHL has seen in some time, scoring almost exclusively on the power play. The vast majority of those goals have come as the net front presence, and he\u2019s tied for second in the NHL for tipped goals, behind only Dmitri Voronkov.<\/p>\n
But Cournoyer was a true power play specialist in his earliest seasons with the Montreal Canadiens. He barely saw the ice except for when Montreal was on the man advantage, as Toe Blake didn\u2019t trust the defensive side of his game and didn\u2019t want to put undue pressure on the young forward.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Cournoyer got ice time in more situations and became known as a strong two-way forward, eventually succeeding Henri Richard as captain of the Canadiens for four seasons. Cournoyer is second in Canadiens history in power play goals, behind only the great Jean Beliveau.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk is just ahead of Camille \u201cThe Eel\u201d Henry, who had a similar story to Cournoyer. Both were small of stature at 5\u20197\u2033, with Henry the smallest player in the NHL in his day. And he primarily served as a power play specialist early in his career, tallying 20 of his 24 goals on the power play in his rookie year, and continued to have success on the power play throughout his career, with many of his goals coming on tips and deflections.<\/p>\n
Also, like Cournoyer, Henry went on to serve as captain of his team, albeit only for part of the 1964-65 season before he was traded. Henry was the all-time leader in power play goals in Rangers history until Mika Zibanejad surpassed him earlier this season.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk, of course, isn\u2019t like Cournoyer and Henry. He isn\u2019t at the beginning of his hockey career, he\u2019s unlikely to set any franchise records, and the odds are against him being named captain of the Canucks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also not entirely his fault that his goals have come almost exclusively on the power play.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk\u2019s career shooting percentage at 5-on-5 is 10.2%. This season, his 5-on-5 shooting percentage is 2.8%.<\/p>\n
DeBrusk has taken 109 shots at 5-on-5 this season. According to Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, 63 of his shot attempts have been high-danger chances, and he has an individual expected goals of 12.5. Just three of his 5-on-5 shots have gone in the net.<\/p>\nAs much as things have gone well for DeBrusk on the power play, he has been startlingly unlucky at 5-on-5.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like this has been a pattern for him in his career. Last season, DeBrusk had 100 shots at 5-on-5; he scored 11 goals. His career high in 5-on-5 goals is 19. He\u2019s actually been a solid 5-on-5 goalscorer in his career.<\/p>\n
But this season, he\u2019s been a pure power play specialist.<\/p>\n
Sponsored by bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake DeBrusk is having a historic season on the Canucks\u2019 power play: Wagner\u2019s Weekly Jake DeBrusk has long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-542810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-vancouver","12":"tag-vancouver-canucks","13":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116354474902698450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}