Jake DeBrusk didn’t spend much time dwelling on what went wrong for the Canucks last season. On the first day of Vancouver’s 2026 Training Camp, he made it clear the conversation has to move in a different direction now.
“Obviously it was an emotional time for all of us. Nobody wanted what happened to happen last year, but there’s no use in thinking about what happened now.
This is Day 1 of training camp. Everyone’s excited, in a good mood, and we’re going to try to get through this thing together day-to-day by being intense and being present,” he said after the team’s first practice.
That reset matters for DeBrusk, too. The winger came through a 2025-26 season that was messy for the Canucks overall, but his own production stayed fairly steady.
He finished with 23 goals and 19 assists in 81 games, which was just about 0.04% below his career points-per-game average of 0.56%. Even so, 24 of those points came on the power play.
With that season behind him, DeBrusk used the summer to zero in on a few specific areas. His shot, especially when coming off the rush, and his speed were at the top of the list.
“It wasn’t necessarily anything crazy I tried to drastically change. I still have confidence in myself.
This is my 10th season, and I think that there’s little things that you can pick up as the years go on,” he explained. “Everyone’s doing all these drills and stuff, and you try them out, but when the season gets down to it, I think the biggest thing was trying to figure out what made it work for me throughout my entire career.
What are my keystones of what my game is, so that even when pucks aren’t going in the net, which seems to happen sometimes in streaks, my game is where it needs to be, I can help this team win.”
The offseason wasn’t just about tweaks on the ice. DeBrusk said he needed distance from everything for a while, and that time away helped him get his head right before coming back to work.
“I really needed to get away from everything, needed to kind of find my love for the game in some ways. I obviously still have it, but I needed to get back to work and prepare for the season. It kind of goes in the blink of an eye when you do that.”
Now heading into the 2026-27 season, DeBrusk appears comfortable with where Vancouver stands and what his role needs to be. As one of the older players on the roster, he sees experience as part of his value.
“You can be part of the solution or part of the problem. It’s a catchy line, but it’s true.
There’s only two ways to go about it. You can’t be in the middle.
Everyone’s got their own different avenues," he said. "I think where I come in is we just try to make everyone feel comfortable, whoever you are, because we’re gonna need everybody.
I went through a pretty long playoff run in Boston. We needed everybody there, so I understand that part of it.”
For DeBrusk, this season is about adapting to the reality in front of the team and helping steer it forward together.
“I think the focus has to change. You have to adapt, and again, you learn a lot about yourself.
[...] We’re all human beings, but the best way to do it is by being together.
You can’t go through this alone. So that’s what the main focus has been for our group.”
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