This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jake DeBrusk
Boston Bruins Left Wing
Twenty-seven goals on the fifth-percentile shot, and the best five-on-five share of any forward in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | BOS | 70 | 16 | 27 | 43 | +13 | 19 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 143 | 11.2 | 14:22 |
| 2018-19 | BOS | 68 | 27 | 15 | 42 | +2 | 18 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 156 | 17.3 | 16:10 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 65 | 19 | 16 | 35 | -1 | 14 | 7 | 0 | 5 | 161 | 11.8 | 16:03 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 41 | 5 | 9 | 14 | +1 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 92 | 5.4 | 14:54 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 77 | 25 | 17 | 42 | +6 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 184 | 13.6 | 15:02 |
| 2022-23 | BOS | 64 | 27 | 23 | 50 | +26 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 191 | 14.1 | 16:47 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 385 | 119 | 107 | 226 | +47 | 83 | 28 | 0 | 29 | 927 | 12.8 | 15:34 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
27 goals and 23 assists in 64 games — 50 points at 16:47 a night, plus-26, with 6 power-play goals and 6 game-winners on 191 shots, converting at 14.14 per cent, and 16 penalty minutes.
62.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 777 minutes. That is the 99th percentile in the league. His ice went 47-22 against an expectation of 41.74-25.27.
It has to be said in the same breath that he played most of those minutes with Bergeron and Marchand, and one of the two has retired. A 99th-percentile share is a fact about the ice he was on, not a portable property, and this season is where the difference becomes visible.
The Finesse Game
191 attempts at a median of 16 feet, with 56 per cent from inside 20 — one of the closest shot charts of any twenty-goal scorer in the book.
The shot itself is measured at 82.5 mph, the 5th percentile in the league, and he scored 27 goals with it. The two facts fit together the only way they can: he scores from the paint or he does not score. 119 goals in 385 career games says the finishing is real within that radius.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 198 and he does not play a heavy game — 83 penalty minutes in 385 games.
The skating is the tool: 23.2 mph top end at the 92nd percentile with 1.6 bursts over twenty a game at the 76th. He beats defencemen to the inside with straight-line speed rather than by turning them, and the whole scoring game is built on arriving at the net before the coverage does.
The Intangibles
Fourteenth overall in 2015, and six seasons of being alternately a 27-goal scorer and a healthy scratch, including a trade request he made and then withdrew.
He is 27, in a contract year, on a club with two retirements to absorb. He is the most likely Bruin to have his career year and his last Boston season at the same time, and both halves of that follow from the same fact: the line he was carried by no longer exists.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
64.4% of his attempts in the slot, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
62.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 51.3% for his club in the minutes he sat: +11.0, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“he scores from the paint or he does not score”
“6-1 and 198 and he does not play a heavy game — 83 penalty minutes in 385 games”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 777 minutes
- Expected goals
- 62.3%
- 99th pct
- Shot attempts
- 59%
- 97th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 22 against. Expected: 41.7 and 25.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 23 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 58 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 777 minutes at five-on-five
- Patrice Bergeronoff the roster65%
- Pavel Zacha16%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- BOS took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 62.3% — 8.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 777 minutes at five-on-five — 37th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrice Bergeron | 65.1% | 56.6% | 61.8% |
| Brad Marchand | 61.6% | 63.8% | 56.4% |
| Hampus Lindholm | 64.4% | 60.8% | 53.5% |
65.1% together, 56.6% for him apart and 61.8% for Bergeron apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
236 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 29 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.