Before Thursday's game against the Rangers, Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk gave a clear and candid answer when asked if he's been able to have fun this season.
"I've been struggling. It's not fun when you're struggling," he said.
But from that dark frame of mind, DeBrusk was able to lift himself up once again.
He broke through for the first time in 13 games with a breakaway goal in the second period, giving the Bruins a 3-0 lead in their eventual 4-0 win over the Rangers and putting a smile back on his face.
"The goal tonight [was] obviously a good read by him to get in behind their D on a turned-over puck," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said about DeBrusk's goal. "Good move by Jake. He had a similar opportunity the other night in Jersey, the goalie made the save."
DeBrusk's teammates were happy for him and happy with his performance, as they expressed after the game.
"Good for him to get that goal. I thought he had lots of chances tonight," Patrice Bergeron said.
"It's awesome, right. Everyone gets excited on the bench and in the room when you see a guy break through," defenseman Charlie McAvoy told reporters after the game. "I know that position, I was in it last year. Seeing just the genuine excitement for guys who are slumping a bit."
For Cassidy it was less about fun and more about results.
"At the end of the day if he can pitch in with some goals and like I said, help us in other areas of the game, then I'll have more fun coaching and hopefully he'll have more fun playing," Cassidy joked when asked about DeBrusk having fun.
"I can't speak to his mood in terms of having fun," Cassidy added. "I know we've got a lot of guys out there having fun. We've had an up and down year but still we win a lot more than we lose. We're going to the playoffs, so I hope Jake's demeanor or mood is that he's excited to do that with the rest of the group. Again, that's up to him."
It's been a hard season for DeBrusk
His shots just aren't going in.
DeBrusk is scoring on just 6.2% of his shots. For comparison, his shot percentage was 11.2% in 2017-18, an impressive 17.3% in 2018-19, and 11.8% in 2019-20. That 6.2% puts DeBrusk in the bottom three forwards on the team in that category.
His spot in the lineup has gone from guaranteed to questionable.
It hasn't been a normal season for anyone, but for DeBrusk the strains have taken him off his game compared to seasons past. He's played 38 of the team's 53 games this year, missing time as a healthy scratch on several occasions and missing six games in COVID protocol.
His goal Thursday was the first time he's scored in 13 games. That was his longest drought of the season, though he did also have a nine-game drought to start the year.
But everyone knows about his struggles by this point.
What everyone wants to know once again is:
Will this goal give him the confidence he needs to get back to the old DeBrusk?
And there is some reason to be optimistic that the answer is "yes."
Though DeBrusk's goal let him and everyone else breathe a sigh of relief, it was actually what he did besides the goal on Thursday night that was more impressive.
It was the effort he gave from start to finish, drawing two penalties (one of which led to a power-play goal by McAvoy), hustling to keep pucks in the Bruins' O-zone, and making a steal to set himself up for a 1-on-1 high-speed chance just before he eventually scored his goal.
Looking back in time to when we saw DeBrusk's best effort of his career -- the 2018-19 season -- we can get an idea of what kind of player he could be again.
He could be the kind of player who is a threat to score multiple goals in any given game, like he was then when he had five multi-goal games that year.
He could hit streaks of offensive dominance, like he did in the middle of that season when he scored eight goals in 10 games.
He could recover from adversity, like he did that year when he also had a 13-game goal drought which turned out to be an anomaly in an otherwise successful, 27-goal year for him.
Also, it's worth mentioning the importance of when this goal comes in the season. The Bruins are just three games away from the start of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and previously the playoffs have been somewhere DeBrusk has had success.
It's true that DeBrusk only has five goals this regular season, but in the past he has been a consistent playoff contributor. Last year he had four playoff goals through the Bruins' 13 postseason games, in 2019 he had four goals and seven assists in the Bruins' run to the Stanley Cup Final, and in 2018 he had six goals through 12 playoff matches.
"I'm pumped for the playoffs for sure," DeBrusk told the media Thursday morning. Hopefully for him, the postseason will help him reach that level once again.
Here's one final reason to be optimistic about the state of DeBrusk and other Bruins players who find themselves under-performing: the fact that this Bruins team has a special knack for picking guys up, taking the pressure off of their struggling teammate, and helping them get in the right mindset.
Bergeron explained how the team has approached supporting players like DeBrusk who have experienced slumps this season:
"You need to be there for one another. You know it's not just about scoring goals. It's about doing the little things right, and guys are doing that and I think JD's one of them."
In the same vein, McAvoy added, "Credit to all the guys, when you're not maybe scoring goals you bring something else to the table to pull on the rope and everyone's been doing that."
