What Hunter Brzustewicz is going through early in his first season as a professional hockey player isn’t unique.
A player dominates in junior and puts up huge points totals, only to arrive in the AHL and realize that it’s a different game in the pros.
There’s levels to this. The numbers drop, maybe the confidence takes a hit and a player realizes he has to work on the other parts of his game to make an impact.
That’s exactly what Brzustewicz is dealing with now and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s part of the process of becoming a pro.
“I think I am taking steps,” Brzustewicz said this week after a Calgary Wranglers practice at Winsport. “I think sometimes you’ve got to take one or two steps back to advance to that next level. I feel like I know where my mentality is again and I’ve just got to find it again. Once I find it, I know where I can go with it.
“Personally, it’s different just going away from home and trying to figure everything out on your own. It’s been different, it’s been hard, but you’ve just got to keep pushing and keep moving forward. That’s all you can do and hopefully I can just find my game.”
It is worth mentioning that Brzustewicz is all of 19-years-old right now — he turns 20 on Friday. Nobody is expecting him to be a finished product and it was entirely foreseeable that his numbers would dip as he made the jump from the OHL to the AHL.
Acquired mid-season last year by the Calgary Flames in the trade that sent Elias Lindholm to the Vancouver Canucks, Brzustewicz was in the midst of an eye-catching season with the Kitchener Rangers.
With 13 goals and 79 assists, he was second in scoring among OHL defencemen, behind only fellow Flames prospect Zayne Parekh.
That rightfully raised expectations for his future and after a strong training camp with the Flames he was sent for more seasoning with the Wranglers.
He’s very much one of the Flames’ most prized prospects, but playing in the AHL has been a bit of a humbling experience, by his own admission. Brzustewicz has recorded only two assists in 18 games for the Wranglers.
Wranglers head coach Trent Cull has no worries about the numbers, though. They’ll come. He wants Brzustewicz focused on the other parts of his game.
“I’ve given him a lot early,” Cull explained. “Wherever we’re at, we’ve got two young guys running our power play from the back end and we don’t have multiple defencemen on our power-play. For Hunter, he’s doing a job, but what we talk about is defending and taking away time and space and how important that is for us and his development, too. If you can be a trusted player, that goes a long way.”
In particular, both Brzustewicz and Cull focused on the young defenceman’s work in front of the net. Cull explained that, as the season wears on, that’s where most goals are going to be scored, so he wants to see Brzustewicz clearing out the area in front of his goalie, getting in front of pucks and working on the little details that make a difference in that busy, physical area of the ice.
And that’s what Brzustewicz is doing. He understands it’s a process and nobody said that adjusting to life in the pros was going to be easy. He’s confident in his offensive game. At this point in his career, that doesn’t need to be his top priority.
He won’t pretend he wouldn’t like to start seeing his name on the scoresheet a little more often, though.
“Anyone would be lying if they said they didn’t and I don’t want to lie,” Brzustewicz said. “At the same time, it’s not what I need to work on to get to the next level. Everyone, including myself, knows I can handle the puck. I know what I can do with it, I’ve just got to get harder around the net, I’ve gotta win my battles, gotta be better positionally, get off the ice quicker and find my pace.
“Once all those pieces come together I think I’m in a good spot, but I’ve got a long way to go.”
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