{"id":544665,"date":"2026-04-07T01:03:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T01:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544665\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T01:03:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T01:03:04","slug":"perfect-storm-canucks-jake-debrusk-unhappy-with-five-on-five-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544665\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Perfect storm’: Canucks’ Jake DeBrusk unhappy with five-on-five production"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 The only road runner Jake DeBrusk<\/a> knew when he was little was Wile E. Coyote\u2019s cartoon nemesis. So it was for most hockey players born outside of Quebec in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Yvan \u201cThe Roadrunner\u201d Cournoyer, the dynamo who won 10 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1960s and \u201970s, was a name foreign to DeBrusk until the Vancouver Canuck recently saw the Hall-of-Famer on Sportsnet\u2019s list of single-season goal-scorers with an historic percentage of power-play goals.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old winger\u2019s 19th\u00a0goal of the season, scored on deflection during the Canucks\u2019 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Saturday, was his 16th\u00a0on the power play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeBrusk\u2019s 84.2-per-cent share of power-play goals trails only Cournoyer\u2019s 88.9 in NHL history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked him up; he actually had a really good career,\u201d DeBrusk, who grew up in Edmonton, said after Monday\u2019s Canuck practice. \u201cBut when I first heard about him, it didn\u2019t ring a bell. People in Montreal, don’t hate me. I was there for Guy Lafleur\u2019s standing ovation (before he passed away in 2022) and that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWould you?\u201d he asked. \u201cIf 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\u2019ve 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 \u2014 backhanded history, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since entering the NHL in 2017-18, DeBrusk was 77th\u00a0in the league with 166 goals through last season. His 44 power-play goals ranked 70th, so his scoring was in perfect balance.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Special teams frequently decide games, so it\u2019s not like power-play goals are empty calories. But they\u2019re not as fulfilling as even-strength ones.<\/p>\n

Why hasn\u2019t DeBrusk\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m trying to figure that out, too,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe 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\u2019m 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\u2019s not a bad worst-case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Notoriously hard on himself, DeBrusk said teammates haven\u2019t been chirping him about his disparity in goal types.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, if anything, whenever we get a power play, guys are like: \u2018It’s your time, here we go,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019t score five-on-five or I read about that, I just laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLook 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE CHIPS \u2014 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\u2019 season ends next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 The only road runner Jake DeBrusk knew when he was little was Wile E. Coyote\u2019s cartoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-544665","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544665","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=544665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}