Jake Debrusk is off to a nightmare start to this season. He has 11 points in 30 games, sitting at a plus 5 for the year. He is on an eight-game goalless streak and has only 1 point in his previous seven games. Coming off two straight seasons of 25 plus goals and 50-point season last season (in 64 games), this is of course a frustrating start for the 27-year-old forward.
When a player gets into a slump like this, you see the frustration without any outward signs of it sometimes. They start to press, take bad shots, miss shots they would usually get on net, or take bad penalties. A clear sign of this happening to Debrusk was in overtime of the Bruins 4-3 loss to the Wild on Tuesday night. The play consisted of Debrusk ripping a shot from a low percentage scoring area, missing the net badly and the Wild taking the puck for an odd man rush the other way for the game winning goal.
There are few ways you can handle a slumping player. You can healthy scratch them, which isn't likely considering Montgomery thinks he has played well even without the scoring and the bad OT play against the Wild. You could pursue a trade; however, his value could be low right now with his terrible start to the year. Thirdly you can just wait it out and see if he turns his play around. Whatever the Bruins decide, they need Debrusk to figure things out, they need the scoring, or they need to figure out other options, as right now he's just eating up minutes (5 most on the team, 4th most 5 on 5) and not doing much with them.
