In a matter of weeks, Jake DeBrusk spurned his hockey team in Boston and his hometown of Edmonton and relocated to the enemy of each. No wonder he is so eager to make a new friend in Elias Pettersson.
“My life is changing,” the 27-year-old winger smiled Monday. “But from this point forward, now it will be more routine. I’m looking forward to kind of getting it going, not only just to start playing hockey again, but to kind of have some normalcy in my life for a little bit.”
Shortly before DeBrusk chose the Vancouver Canucks in free agency on Canada Day, bringing his National Hockey League career back to the West after seven seasons with the Boston Bruins, the Edmonton native moved his off-season home to Calgary.
DeBrusk’s girlfriend, Mia Voyatzis, who is also from Edmonton, began her residency in Calgary on July 1 after completing medical school.
So, it’s Canucks, not Bruins. And Calgary, not Edmonton.
“I followed her all the way to Calgary — to the enemy zone, I guess, for an Edmonton guy,” DeBrusk said. “But you’ve got just go head-first into it, right?”
The same day Mia began her residency, Jake signed a seven-year, $38.5-million-US contract with the Canucks, making him the marquee summer acquisition on a team that added six new players in free agency.
But it wasn’t only love and money that brought DeBrusk west, although they were factors. But he chose the Canucks also for the chance to play with Pettersson, the star centre who needed wingers after Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev were jettisoned during and after last season.
And if that on-ice partnership doesn’t work, Canuck coach Rick Tocchet can offer DeBrusk 103-point centre J.T. Miller as a linemate.
Last season in Boston — after the retirement of Bruins Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci — DeBrusk played mostly with centre Charlie Coyle.
“Looking just at the centre position was kind of the first thing that I really looked at,” DeBrusk reiterated Monday to reporters at the Canucks’ annual pre-season golf tournament in Surrey. “Obviously, how they played last year in the playoffs, playing against them. . . Rick Tocchet’s reputation, all these things come into it when you try to decide your future. I really like where the team is going. Obviously, they made some big steps last year, and I just thought that I would be able to fit in pretty well. It excited me looking at the roster. . . and to join a group like that, I couldn’t say no.”
DeBrusk said yes to the idea of playing with Pettersson, who struggled for much of the second half of last season and disappeared in the playoffs but is regarded as one of the top 15 centres in the NHL.
Two seasons ago, Pettersson had 102 points. And four months before Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin signed DeBrusk, he re-signed Pettersson to a $92.8-million contract that is easily the richest in franchise history.
Tocchet plans to start DeBrusk on a line with Pettersson, who is a massive X-factor this season after finishing last year with 89 points and just one goal in 13 playoff games.
Burnishing his reputation as a playoff performer, DeBrusk had five goals and 11 points in 13 post-season games for the Bruins. In the regular season, he scored 19 times in 80 games. But DeBrusk averaged 24 goals over his last three regular seasons, and hit 27 twice during his years in Boston.
No one thinks he’s going to be the reverse Cam Neely for the Canucks, but DeBrusk has size, speed and a career shooting percentage of 12.4 per cent. His direct game should complement Pettersson’s playmaking.
“I kind of want to get back to that 25- to 30-goal range,” he said. “I think I could possibly get more if things go really well. But at the same time, it’s a new experience for me. That’s something that I’m brought in to do — to score goals. I’m just going to try to do the job the best I can.”
After spending the summer in Calgary, DeBrusk arrived in Vancouver only last week. He skated once with Pettersson and has been trying to get to know his prospective centre.
“I’ve been trying to talk to him as much as I can,” DeBrusk said. “I’m just trying to meet everybody as fast as possible and trying to get to know them. I’ve talked to him every day I’ve been here. I don’t know if I’ve been annoying him just yet, but it’s only been a couple of days.
“We’ve skated once together and we played some four-on-four shifts and things like that, just kind of getting to read (off each other). He was making some unreal passes. There were some plays I wasn’t necessarily ready for (the puck), but I told him to keep doing it because I will be ready for it. He’s just such a sick player. You can just tell the skill level and why he’s always been such a dangerous guy to play against.”
Amiable, outgoing and talkative, DeBrusk probably has lots of friends even after switching sides in hockey and intra-provincial rivalries. But his personality does seem quite different than Pettersson’s.
“Sometimes it’s yin and yang, I guess,” he said. “It’s one of those things where I’m just going to be myself. I find I can eventually get to know everybody. . . so I’m not too worried about us being friends. I don’t actually really know him yet, but just initially, I’ve been getting good energy, good vibes from him. And I’ve been talking to him as much as I can. You might ask him what he thinks about me, and then I’ll know where we stand.”
Pettersson, alas, was unavailable Monday. He is among a small handful of Canucks who have decided, like last season, they won’t speak to the media until training camp opens. Or until they have to.
When players move their “captain’s skates” to Rogers Arena this week, the media is not expected to be allowed inside. But we’re guessing DeBrusk and Pettersson will get a lot of reps together in practices run by Canucks skills coach Jason Krog.
“It was different putting on the blue equipment in the summer, you know?” DeBrusk told reporters. “It’s like your first day of school again. It’s one of those things where I’m just trying to get straight As.”