Jake DeBrusk Injury
Bruins lose star-winger after his 2-goal effort at the Winter Classic
Just two days ago it seemed as though Jake DeBrusk had won over the majority of fans who had seemingly doubted him, and labeled him as a “bust.” He shined with a two-goal performance on one of hockey’s most prominent stages at the Winter Classic. Notching his 15th and 16th goals of the season to pave the way for the win. JDB was well on his way to having his best professional season thus far and all was simply great…
But after the game, pictures surfaced of DeBrusk at TD Garden in a walking boot. The lower-body injury appears to have happened just before he scored his first goal of the game after absorbing the brunt of a Matt Grzelcyk blast from the point prior to getting back to his feet and powering one home at the net after getting a nifty pass from Brad Marchand. It’s very odd though because he showed no signs of pain during the game. After Evgeni Malkin nearly beat the buzzer at the end of regulation, DeBrusk was visibly slow to get up after he tried to block the shot as soon as the clocks hit zero.
Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff reported that DeBrusk has a broken bone in his lower leg. He tweeted:
“No shock given that he didn’t accompany #NHLBruins out west, but I’m told Jake DeBrusk has a fractured fibula that will keep him out. Tough blow for DeBrusk, playing the best hockey of his career.”
An injury like this most likely means that DeBrusk will be out for a considerable time, but it is always tough to speculate on an exact time frame. The B’s are now without their first-line right winger, who has blended perfectly next to Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand as of late.
For a corresponding move, the Bruins re-called F Chris Wagner from Providence, who made the trip to Los Angeles with the team.
So what are the different routes Boston could now take? As they still currently own the best record in the league and are the favorites to win the Stanley Cup. With a difficult cap situation that would make it hard to make a marginal trade at this point, the Bruins’ front office will certainly have a choice to make on just how aggressively they want to pursue and treat this. Let’s run through the options;
Long-Term Injured Reserve:
If Jake DeBrusk’s injury takes several months to heal, the Bruins could place him on LTIR. This would immediately remove his cap hit from the Bruins total salary cap until he returns back to the lineup, creating more cap space. But here’s the catch; the league no longer complies with the salary cap once the postseason begins. Whereas teams can bring back their injured players under no penalty once this happens.
This is a strategy that has been used more frequently in the recent years. Most notably when the Tampa Bay Lightning employed the Long-Term Injured Reserve to keep forward Nikita Kucherov off the payroll for the entire 2020-21 regular season, allowing them to re-sign other players and add at the trade deadline by using the entirety of his $9.5MM cap hit as added space. This would ultimately lead them to win a Stanley Cup.
Teams still have to pay the player their given salaries no matter if they go against the cap or not, so if the Bruins do decide to trade for a replacement, that’s just one more check to pay for the Jacobs family. It’s worth noting that the Bruins put Marc Savard on LTIR in January of 2011 when he suffered a concussion that ended his season. But the team did not take advantage of the $4.1MM that was freed in cap space, with the probable cause being ownership not wanting to spend more money on personnel.
The Bruins could grant themselves $3.675MM in cap space for a future transaction if they see DeBrusk being out for that long. If they do end up trading for a replacement with the money freed by JBD, he would have to miss at least the rest of the regular season.
This scenario puts Boston in a much better financial state toward acquiring a premier player with a prominent cap hit.
Patrick Kane is the obvious choice if the Bruins were to make a splash of magnitude.
Salvage With What You Have:
The only good way of looking at this is that the Bruins currently deploy the deepest forward unit in the league. The Bruins could still easily field a lineup that can win every night. With Taylor Hall on the third line, he is the most obvious name that would move up given DeBrusks absence.
Bruins line rushes at practice yesterday saw David Pastrnak back on the first line with Marchand and Bergeron. David Krejci now sharing the second line with Pavel Zacha and Hall.
The feasibility of this option is what makes it so likely. As the Bruins don’t have to gamble on DeBrusk’s future or availability upon coming back from injury. Boston could roll with what they have, while not hitting the “panic button” with one of its key forwards out. Pre-maturely making a move that might not make as much sense when fully healthy could prove costly later on.
Call Up The Farm:
This would be the most far-fetched scenario of the bunch. But if the Bruins want to find a real in-house replacement for Jake DeBrusk, look no further than top-prospect Fabian Lysell. The 19-year-old is a right-wing who stands at 5’11’’ and 175 pounds.
Currently playing for Team Sweden at the World Juniors, Lysell has posted 0 points with a -1 in six games played in the tournament. He has 8 goals and 19 points in Providence which projects to turn into 24 goals and 60 points, if he plays a full rest of the season, according to Elite Prospects.
After seeing a brief look of Lysell in the preseason, the scouting report seemed to show a highly-skilled player that has the hands and IQ to be a solid top-6 NHL player. His downsides showed that he is still too undersized to go up against the body contact that he would face in the league while showing some obvious mental errors that comes with many other budding prospects. Translating to a player that was obviously not ready for the NHL. It’s hard to imagine so much has changed in just 4 months.
But again, he is only 19 years old. He still has a lot of time to develop, which is the reason why this scenario seems way too unlikely. The Bruins should stick towards continuing to let him learn the professional game in the minor leagues for at least the rest of the season. They could then reassess at the beginning of training camp next year as to how close Lysell is to joining the team.
No matter which way you go by this, none are the preferred option. The Bruins will certainly miss DeBrusk’s recent knack for getting into the dirty areas and finding ways to produce. He is a player that is featured not only on the first line, but on both the power-play and penalty kill. His recent success had marked a complete 180-degree turn for him, where he was disgruntled and had requested a trade at this point last season.
A true tough break for both sides, as DeBrusk loses his ability to continue to add onto his great campaign, and the Bruins lose a pacemaker to their lineup and one of their biggest cap bargains on the roster.
Only time will tell what’s next for Jake DeBrusk, with the best-case scenario being returning at any point this season.