Canucks: Jake DeBrusk says he has ‘a lot of faith’ in Elias Pettersson

From a personal production standpoint, Jake DeBrusk’s first season as a Vancouver Canuck went about as well as anyone could have hoped for.

After signing a seven-year deal with a $5.5 million AAV in 2024 free agency, DeBrusk led the Canucks in goals with 28. Despite the flashy point totals, the winger sounds far from satisfied after his first season in Vancouver. During the season, DeBrusk talked about wanting to cause more chaos — to make a bigger impact on games even if he’s not scoring. DeBrusk further reflected on his first season in Vancouver during the latest episode of the 100% Canucks Podcast with John Shannon and Landon Ferraro.

“I never really scored the amount of goals in certain ways as I did this year. I think just with Quinn [Hughes] being back there, obviously the way that he plays, I just found that I didn’t know where to go on the ice at the start of the season, I was trying to follow him around a little bit. And then I just started heading towards the front of the net because eventually it would get there. Then you get more deflections and more tips. But it’s something that could definitely work at, I think there was a lot of room for improvement on just the net-front side. But I would say more so it was my calling card, I guess I scored some greasy ones. But I was surprised with how many didn’t go in off the rush this year, to be honest with you.”

DeBrusk also talked about regular linemate Elias Pettersson, who’s coming off a disappointing season in which he tallied just 45 points in year one of an eight-year deal that will see him earn $11.6 million annually.

“That’s one of the things I was most excited about with coming to Vancouver was a guy like Quinn, a guy like Petey. You look at that, and as a forward, as a left winger, I look at that as a lot of opportunity. I don’t think I did a good enough job for him last year…I don’t think when I was playing with him, I gave him my best game either, in fairness. I think we were figuring each other out and it took some time. But I think that Petey is going to have a good offseason, he’s going to come back in good shape, and the skill is there. Like the skill, his hands, his vision, I don’t think you can teach some of those things.

“I have a lot of faith in him. I mean, I signed a seven year deal to play with them. So, I mean, I believe in them more than probably most.”

Finally, DeBrusk talked about the club re-signing Thatcher Demko and entering the year with a team that, on paper, should be a solid defensive team.

“I take a lot of that on my shoulders. You know, I look at that and I go, ‘okay, well, there’s a lot of opportunity for me to be even more offensive in that way. You know, we got guys behind us that are proven in this league and are obviously great players. And we got Demmer behind us or Lanks [Kevin Lankinen] behind us that can stop other pucks. I’ve played on some pretty defensive-minded teams… I mean, only one other one, that’s Boston, so I’m pretty much used to this type of a style. And I think that I’ve had a career out of it. I think that obviously there’s going to be times where it might be a tight 2-1 game or 3-2 game and I take a lot of pride in being that guy to score that goal to tie it or to win it.

“It’s going to take a collective unit, but I think it’ll make the unit better. I think that’s how I look at it positively is, it’s not going to be about one guy scoring. We’re not going to have that. We’re going to need everybody, to kind of get all hands on deck. But knowing we have the backbone behind us, as an offensive guy, is exciting. That’s what you want to play for. You don’t want to score four points a game if you’re losing 5-4 — it doesn’t really matter. We need to get to the playoffs, is kind of the point and defence wins championships.”