The last of the Bruins restricted free agents left to sign is an RFA no more as on Monday the Bruins announced the signing of Jake DeBrusk to a two-year contract with an annual cap hit of $3.675M.

DeBrusk is coming off of his entry-level contract that saw the 24-year old score 62 goals and add 58 assists for 120 points in 203 regular season games.

The timing of the DeBrusk contract is an interesting one as the hope for a January 1st start date is still there. But with each passing day, the odds of a New Year’s Day puck drop become less likely.

With so much unknown in the hockey future, Sweeney and DeBrusk’s camp surely discussed a lot of different options before landing on a two-year contract and a contract that should benefit both sides.

“Again, the timing is – every negotiation really has its own timeline. We went through an extended period with both Brandon [Carlo] and Charlie [McAvoy] last year. The landscape is just, there are a lot of unknowns associated with where we’re going in the immediate future and hopefully things, with all the positive news associated with vaccines and a hopeful climate that could potentially exist, that we get back on track,” Sweeney said Monday evening.

“But we have some ground to cover and I think that was part of the discussions this time around with Jake and [his agent] Rick [Valete] and realizing that we explored a longer-term deal. And it’s probably on me that it didn’t come to fruition, we focused on a shorter term given the landscape and the uncertainty.”

During the summer on an Edmonton sports radio show Valete discussed DeBrusks pending status claiming that his client wouldn’t be taking a “hometown discount.”

While I wouldn’t call today’s announcement a hometown discount, it’s a contract that I am sure in July looked like it would be more beneficial to the DeBrusk camp.

“Again, as I referenced, we had initial talks as we did with Brandon and Charlie and young players we think are part of our future, our core, that we’ll look to try and do longer term and sometimes it just doesn’t work,” Sweeney said. “And in this case, I think a little of the unknown landscape had me pivot back to shorter term to allow us flexibility now and then moving forward, and obviously allowing Jake for the next platform. His ability to take it to another level.”

After a 43-point rookie campaign in 2017-18, followed by a 27-goal season in 2018-19, DeBrusk failed to take that next step in his development in 2019-20, a season where the Bruins had hoped he would. DeBrusk had 19 goals and 16 assists for 35 points in 65 games during the pandemic shortened season.

Throughout his three years in Boston DeBrusk has shown consistency in the Bruins lineup and as a player who when he’s hot, he really gets going. But it’s those lulls in between that leaves more to be desired and has been what’s held him back from taking that next step.

DeBrusk has grown to be a solid second line winger to the left of center David Krejci. But he's also shown the ability to play the off-wing, or find some production being centered by Charlie Coyle.

The Bruins see his potential and know what DeBrusk can do from a production standpoint. It’s just a matter of putting it all together on a more consistent basis.

“For us, it’s just the outlook of what Jake is capable of doing and he’s shown it. He’s been consistently productive. Not to be contradicting myself in that regard, I just think there are stretches, where if Jake finds a level that he’s capable of, affecting the game in a two-way component, he might not walk out of the game and think, well Jake didn’t score tonight, he’s in a slump. I don’t think it’s all about that,” said Sweeney.

“The puck doesn’t go in at times, and all go scorers through that. I think Jake has an opportunity to impact a game in a lot, a lot of different ways. We want all to help him, the coaches included, Jake himself wants to recognize it and be that impactful player over the course of an entire 60 minutes as well as on the scoresheet. His numbers speak to the fact that he’s had consistent production.”

With the signing of DeBrusk, the Bruins have just under $3M left in cap space. A figure that should leave more than enough room for the Bruins to bring captain Zdeno Chara back for one more season.

While Chara continues to wait and see what a return to play format will look like in the upcoming season, things remain a status quo between Sweeney and Chara.

“Same status quo there. Waiting to reconnect with [agent] Matt [Keator] and Zdeno. Zee continues to evaluate what the landscape of the league looks like and we’ll see where it goes,” Sweeney said.

“We’ve had constant communication and hopefully we’ve got a target date here at some point in the near future and we’ll see what the league determines.”

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