{"id":467026,"date":"2025-04-19T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=467026"},"modified":"2025-04-18T22:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T02:56:11","slug":"goals-that-canucks-jake-debrusk-can-build-on-in-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/19\/goals-that-canucks-jake-debrusk-can-build-on-in-2025-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Goals That Canucks Jake DeBrusk Can Build on in 2025\u201326"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his first season as a member of the <\/span>Vancouver Canucks<\/span><\/a>, Jake DeBrusk<\/a> scored a career-high of 28 goals in 82 games played. This total made him the team\u2019s goal scoring leader this season, followed closely by Brock Boeser<\/a> and Pius Suter<\/a> (25). While his overall effort was solid, he also faced a few cold streaks during which he produced no points. With a few months to prepare for the 2025\u201326 season, let\u2019s take a look at some areas where DeBrusk succeeded and some he can improve on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Deployment Played a Big Role in DeBrusk\u2019s Goals\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Historically speaking, this season was on the higher side of DeBrusk\u2019s total shooting percentage, coming in second during his career. 16.47% of the shots he took ended up in the opposing team\u2019s net, as per <\/span>Natural Stat Trick<\/span><\/a>. His highest rate came in the 2018\u201319 season, when he scored off of 17.31% of his shots. Interestingly, he had more shots this season (170) than he did in 2018\u201319 (156). However, his total shots from this season have dipped compared to his past three seasons with the Boston Bruins. He had 185 shots in 2021\u201322, 191 in 2022\u201323, and 183 in 2023\u201324.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStatistically, yeah, I guess I had my career high in goals,\u201d DeBrusk said during his end of season media availability on Friday. \u201cObviously, you want to always get more per year. So I guess that one was checked off, but the way I was scoring was pretty much always in front of the net, kind of tip-ins, rebounds. I didn\u2019t really have much rush goals this year. I didn\u2019t have goals that I normally score, that I have in my whole career.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As put best by the forward himself, DeBrusk\u2019s goal scoring abilities this season were highly dependent on his deployment. Of his 170 shots on the season, 78 of these were taken from within the slot, as per <\/span>NHL Edge<\/span><\/a>. His shooting percentage in this area was 28.2%. All but six of his goals on the season were scored from here. While shooting from the slot isn\u2019t a new thing for DeBrusk, it\u2019s important to note that he found much more success here this season than he has in the past. In 2023\u201324, he put 61 shots on goal from this area, but only churned out eight goals. He had 85 shots from the slot in 2022\u201323, but only produced a 20% shooting rate. As well, his 68 shots from this area in 2021\u201322 only resulted in 12 goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Power Play Production Was a Positive for DeBrusk<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the reasons why DeBrusk hit a new career high was because of his time on the man-advantage. Of his 28 goals on the season, DeBrusk scored 14 of them on the power play. This number ties him with eight other players for fourth in the entire NHL. He leads his team in this particular stat, with the next highest goal count being nine from Boeser. 55 of his 170 shots tallied this season came on the man-advantage. He placed first on the team in shooting percentage (25.45%) among all players with more than 60 minutes on the power play this season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same vein, DeBrusk placed third on the team in power play points (19). He led the team in high-danger chances-for on the man-advantage with 53, registering a whole 29 more than the next player. He finished fourth on the Canucks in total power play time this season with 209:07 minutes played. For reference, he ended the season with 1365:13 minutes on ice, which is another career high. Despite half of his goals coming from the power play this season, DeBrusk only spent around 15% of his time on ice on the man-advantage. As well, approximately 40% of his points came on the power play. As lethal as DeBrusk has been on the Canucks\u2019 man-advantage, in the 2025\u201326 season, Vancouver will look for more even-strength consistency in his play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeBrusk\u2019s Next Goal Should Be Generating More Rush Chances<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One point that sticks out about what DeBrusk said is how he pointed out his own lack of rush chances. As a whole, Vancouver\u2019s leader in rush opportunities was Teddy Blueger<\/a>, who had 13. DeBrusk had six on the season, tying him with Danton Heinen<\/a>, Elias Pettersson<\/a>, and Tyler Myers<\/a>. While this isn\u2019t bad company to keep, last season, DeBrusk had 19 rush attempts. He had 17 in the season before that, and 10 in 2021\u201322. The sudden drop-off in these opportunities isn\u2019t necessarily the sign of a struggling player \u2014 in fact, if anything, it\u2019s a sign that he\u2019s had to\u00a0 adjust his game in order to fit the team\u2019s system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think my game was where it needed to be coming into the season,\u201d he said. \u201c[It was] different trying to get used to guys, and chemistry and certain things. I think that I could have done a better job of actually playing my game. I think that would help a lot of things.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeBrusk\u2019s Goals for the 2025\u201326 Season Come From This Year\u2019s Experiences<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With his first year as a Canuck now in the books, DeBrusk can reflect on the season and set goals for himself in 2025\u201326.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s some good things too,\u201d DeBrusk said on Friday. \u201cI think that this year I learned a lot. You learn lots every year in this league. You think you see it all, and then things happen. But, you know, I think there\u2019s lots of positives to take away. I think there\u2019s a lot more, I have a lot more room to go. So, you know, I\u2019m going to try to keep getting more goals.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo: Bob Frid- Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his first season as a member of the Vancouver Canucks, Jake DeBrusk scored a career-high of 28 goals in 82 games played. This total made him the team\u2019s goal scoring leader this season, followed closely by Brock Boeser and Pius Suter (25). While his overall effort was solid, he also faced a few cold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5509,"featured_media":467096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4548,4547],"tags":[2323,5892],"class_list":["post-467026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","category-hockey","tag-jake-debrusk","tag-vancouver-canucks-analysis"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467026"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467097,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467026\/revisions\/467097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}