VANCOUVER — Jake DeBrusk went to eight weddings this summer. The funeral felt like last season.

As the Vancouver Canucks collapsed on themselves and were forced into a rebuild, plummeting to the bottom of the National Hockey League, DeBrusk struggled through a campaign in which he scored just four even-strength goals.

The 29-year-old winger who prides himself on five-on-five play became essentially a power-play specialist, scoring 19 times with the man-advantage. But those goals often seemed like empty calories as the Canucks’ fell beyond competitive relevance over the winter while getting badly outplayed.

Two years into the seven-year, $38.5-million contract he signed in 2024 to return to Western Canada and help the Canucks win in the playoffs, the Edmonton native was a frequent focus of trade rumours and speculation.

One of the most accessible and accountable Canucks, DeBrusk poured kerosene on those fires when he said a few days before the March 6 trade deadline that a rebuild “is not something I would be OK with or accepting. My game doesn’t fit that.”

“What I said, that quote, gets a lot of attention,” DeBrusk told Sportsnet this week, still a Canuck and sounding excited about another season in Vancouver. “But nobody remembers what I said the next day when I........

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