Last February, Sportsnet’s Louie DeBrusk interviewed his son Jake rinkside when Jake and the Boston Bruins were making their once-a-year pilgrimage to Edmonton’s Rogers Place.
Jake signed off with, “Thanks, dad. I love you.”
Everybody loves Jake, who grew up here as a huge Edmonton Oilers fan, but now that he has joined the enemy, signing that free-agent seven-year $38.5 million contract with the Vancouver Canucks, maybe not so much as before.
Especially after the heated playoff series that went seven games last spring.
‘Writing was on the wall’
The Bruins didn’t try hard to keep DeBrusk, 27, even though he had 11 points in 13 playoff games this past spring and 47 in 86 career post-season tilts along with 266 points in 465 regular-season matches.
“(The contract) was weighing on me. I was there (in Boston) for seven years. I love the city. But sometimes it doesn’t work out. The writing was on the wall,” said DeBrusk, who did see a lot of his old Bruins buddies a short time ago in Europe at David Pastrnak’s wedding before attending Perry Pearn’s 3-on-3 pro camp here.
“You never know what’s going to happen when you’re going through your first free agency, but I was pretty confident it was going to be Vancouver,” said DeBrusk, with the move west being a much better fit family-wise and personally with his girlfriend Mia in medical residency in Calgary, where she plans on becoming a family doctor.
“It hasn’t really been too real yet (being with Vancouver), although I’ve looked at houses there and snuck into the rink. The (Vancouver) colours are a similar scheme to when I was in Swift Current (junior),” said DeBrusk, who has moved to Calgary for the summer to be with Mia.
DeBrusk will wear 74 with the Canucks, as he did in Boston.
“I did think of 29 like my dad wore (in his NHL career), but he didn’t ever play for Vancouver. I would only want that on a team my dad played on,” he said.
The Oilers’ devastating loss
DeBrusk’s Bruins were playing Florida in the second round at the same time the Oilers had their playoff battle with Vancouver in May, so his attention was divided.
“I did watch some of it… Growing up in Edmonton, I know what the rivalry with Vancouver fans is like. Obviously, it went to a Game 7 and I know what that’s all about. I played in six of those with the Bruins,” said Jake.
“I thought about going to a Cup final game (Oilers-Florida), but I decided to watch about somebody’s house. Looking back, I remember 2006 when my dad took me to the Game 6 playoff against Detroit where the Oilers won here… the (Ales) Hemsky goal back-door from (Sergei) Samsonov,” said DeBrusk, who was only nine years old.
DeBrusk was certainly pulling for the Oilers in Game 7 in Florida, hometown roots, and the fact the Panthers knocked the Bruins out of the playoffs. He knows the crushing feeling of losing a Game 7, and to have it happen in the other team’s building with the celebration going on and the Cup on the ice.
He knows Connor McDavid took heat for not going out to get the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, even though he rightfully said he didn’t want to leave his shaken teammates in their room as their captain. It didn’t seem right to 97, and DeBrusk totally agreed.
“I don’t know if you can fully know how that feels for every player, especially a player like Connor. You’re not yourself at that moment. You see the Stanley Cup going on the ice for the other team. That’s devastating. I don’t blame Connor. I don’t think he cared at that point. I saw stuff online. People don’t know what (losing Game 7) is like,” said DeBrusk.
DeBrusk will be playing with either Elias Pettersson or J.T. Miller in Vancouver.
“My guess would be Pettersson but it revolves around chemistry and how training camp goes. Obviously, Pettersson is a top 10 player, maybe top five when he’s on., so much skill, and J.T. is a great two-way player,” said DeBrusk.
Have passport, will travel
Pearn, 73, is now China’s national team coach after a successful run with Japan’s side and a short stint with Italy with former NHL buddy Mike Pelino last spring when the country’s head coach Mike Keenan took a leave because he needed heart surgery.
“The Chinese thing came out of the blue. They had a national team with all these double passport (U.S. or Canadian and China) guys, but they’ve moved away from that,” said Pearn, who beat that national side with their many KHL Kunlun Red Star players when he was coaching in Japan, something the Chinese Federation paid attention to after the country didn’t qualify for the 2026 Olympics in Italy.
Pearn, who spent two decades as an NHL assistant coach, signed a one-year contract in China. He will be spending time in Beijing and Harbin, spending the month of October there as the Chinese now go with homegrown, young players. Over the winter, he’ll be at the IIHF Asia Cup event in Kazakhstan with Japan, Korea and China. Also, the team will make a trip to Ontario for a month playing university teams there, plus the IIHF IB pool world championship in Estonia in the spring.
This ‘n’ that
Ex-Oilers defenceman Matt Benning, who had hip surgery in January, is at Pearn’s camp, and looking just fine, so he should be ready when San Jose opens up in three weeks. He only played 14 games last season for the Sharks.
Pearn sounded out former Oilers assistant coach Dave Manson to see if he might be interested in being his China assistant, but at this time, it didn’t work out for Manson, who is back in Saskatchewan. Same with Pelino, whose dad died.
McDavid and buddy Auston Matthews were just shown on the ice with the Munich Red Bulls on a social media post.
The difference between the NBA pay scale and the NHL. Golden State Warriors just signed Steph Curry to a one-year $66 million contract. Leon Draisaitl, one of the world’s best players, is finishing up his eight-year $86 million deal with the Oilers.
Former Oilers team president Bob Nicholson is currently in Denmark as the IIHF’s point man for Olympic qualifying there.
Local boy Reid Schaefer, the first-round draft pick winger the Oilers included in the Nashville package to get Mattias Ekholm, is also at Pearn’s sessions and looking slimmer, maybe also quicker, after his first year as a pro in Milwaukee (AHL). Benning’s younger brother Mike, who played defence for Florida’s AHL farm team in Charlotte last winter, was around the Panthers as a Black Ace during the playoffs. Needless to say, he was torn in the finals.
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun