If he was “consistent” scoring wise the way people here seem to expect he’d be a $8M+ player. His effort is consistent, including on the PK.
I actually feel the reverse. I think his scoring is consistent in the way guys with his general totals are
not consistent. Unless you're a PPG player like Pasta you're going to have stretches where you get points in bunches and stretches where you go 0-fer over six or seven games. It's really just math and regression to and from the mean.
But his effort, something he can control, comes and goes, and that drives me nuts. The fact he can look as good as he does when he's engaged highlights how bad he is when he's not. I can take a few games with no points, but it's when he goes a few games peeling off every corner like he's allergic to round shapes where I get frustrated.
I'm not really down on him like I used to be. I actually think overall he's a pretty good player, and if he wore his emotion on his face the way Marco Sturm did everyone would realize they have a lot in common and love DeBrusk as much. (Sturm would be on fire for two weeks and then vanish for two weeks.) But Jake is pretty even keeled all the time and I think it makes it seem like he doesn't care, so when he's a ghost it feels like he REALLY doesn't care.
I think he's gone. He's gonna get paid on the market and then everyone, even his biggest fans, will tagree he's not worth the contract he signed, all while we have no way of replacing him.
Bad job by the Bruins front office who should have traded him before the season without a deal in place considering they themselves called this a "transition year."
