Last week, it was reported that Boston Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk was on the trade block after he and his agent requested that he be moved. This was a major shock to no one unless you count the mild surprise that he had ever been taken off the block, to begin with. 

Over the last few years, there have been several rumours about the team acquiring a top-level talent that involved DeBrusk in some fashion. It’s seemed inevitable that the relationship between the 2015 14th overall pick and the franchise who drafted him would end like this.

A few years ago, DeBrusk seemed like the silver lining of the Bruins’ disastrous performance in the 2015 NHL Draft. The team squandered an absurd amount of draft capital by drafting DeBrusk, Jakub Zboril and Zach Senyshyn with consecutive picks, followed immediately by the selection of Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor and Thomas Chabot by other teams.