Jake DeBrusk shines in Bruins OT win over Seattle

The Bruins kicked off their West Coast road trip in Seattle with a 3-2 win in overtime. 

Jake DeBrusk celebrates with his teammates after scoring one of his two goals Thursday night.

The main takeaway from this game was Jake DeBrusk. After requesting a trade earlier in the year because he thought a change of scenery would benefit his performance. While the Bruins haven’t traded DeBrusk yet, his game has started to take off after a slow start to the season. 

DeBrusk has gotten an opportunity and ran with it. After the Bruins were short handed due to a Patrice Bergeron injury and a Brad Marchand six game suspension. In DeBrusk’s last five games he has posted four goals and has been visibly better on the ice, finding himself getting many opportunities to score and now capitalizing on those opportunities. 

With Marchand and Bergeron out the Bruins needed others to step up and create more offense and DeBrusk has done that. As a reward to DeBrusk’s good play while Marchand was suspended head coach Bruce Cassidy gave DeBrusk the nod to be alongside Bergeron and Marchand against the Kraken, in Marchand’s return from his suspension. 

DeBrusk continued his hot streak by potting two goals including the OT winner making Cassidy’s decision to move DeBrusk up the lineup look phenomenal. DeBrusk playing well is certainly something the Bruins have needed during the difficult stretch that they have had.

Another area to look at with DeBrusk’s hot streak is how this could affect his trade value. The Bruins need to make a decision, trade DeBrusk or keep him. Either way I still believe that the team needs to find more secondary scoring and help on the back end if they want to compete for a Stanley Cup this Spring.