Jake DeBrusk's name has been floating around the rumor mill for a full year now, but there's one detail that keeps getting lost.
Rick Dhaliwal set the record straight this weekend on Donnie & Dhali.
"I did hear this summer that he did not ask for a trade," Dhaliwal said, even with all the trade talk that surrounded him.
That's a real distinction. DeBrusk never pushed for the door, even as his name kept getting attached to it anyway.
DeBrusk posted 28 goals and 42 points in 81 games last season for Vancouver, going minus-31 on a team that finished 25-49-8.
Some teams reportedly passed on him anyway, with Dhaliwal noting there was too much term left on his deal for certain suitors to bite.
Vancouver finished dead last in the league standings, 32nd overall, and lost 6-1 to Edmonton in their season finale.
What actually kept teams away from a DeBrusk trade
Term, not talent, is the real reason this rumor never turned into an actual deal.
DeBrusk still put up 28 goals on a roster that scored 216 total and allowed 316, numbers that expose exactly how bad things got in Vancouver.
His minus-31 rating says as much about the Canucks around him as it does about DeBrusk himself.
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Head coach Manny Malhotra now walks into another season with a winger who never wanted out, playing on a team that finished last overall.
That's an odd position for a franchise to be in. Keeping a player nobody could actually confirm wanted to leave, while everyone around the league assumed otherwise.
DeBrusk stayed quiet through a year of speculation. Whether Vancouver's front office uses that loyalty to build around him or shops him again once term becomes less of an issue is the question that lingers into this season.
Should the Canucks build around Jake DeBrusk or trade him this season?
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