After grinding through a seven-game series with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins got off to a quick start in their second-round assignment, taking the Tampa Bay Lightning for a 6-2 ride to open up a 1-0 series lead.
Though it was the Bruins’ indomitable top line trio doing work as per usual in Game 1, in on the action once again was rookie Jake DeBrusk, whose Saturday afternoon stat line featured a few shots, blocks and hits sprinkled around his late-game empty-net goal.
Count Don Cherry among those impressed by DeBrusk’s post-season emergence. After putting up 16 goals and 43 points during 70 regular-season contests — fifth and seventh among Bruins scorers, respectively — the 21-year-old now leads his club with six post-season tallies while scoring at a point-per-game pace through eight playoff tilts.
The offence is appreciated, but it’s DeBrusk’s well-rounded game and his willingness to lay it all on the line for the spoked B that has him cementing himself as one of Boston’s finest.
“He is a Bruin,” said Cherry, who coached the team from 1974-79, during Coach’s Corner on Saturday. “This is a Bruin. This is the way the Bruins play. I remember we used to get guys who were kind of faint-hearted — as soon as they put on that Bruins sweater, something happens to them.”
DeBrusk has posted at least one point in all but one of Boston’s eight post-season games thus far, and has put pucks in the net in five of those tilts.
The young winger had a particularly impressive stretch during Game 1 against the Lightning, battling through a painful blocked shot to ensure he got the puck out of the Bruins’ zone — culminating in a diving play at the blue line to poke the biscuit away from smooth-skating defender Mikhail Sergachev.
“It’s the name in the front, not the name in the back,” Cherry said following a clip of the shift in question. “Pretty good guy.”
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