Zdeno Chara’s third NHL fight was against Jake DeBrusk’s father
"It was probably the most helpless I felt in a fight ever in my career."
With the season on the line in Game 7 agains the Maple Leafs, Jake DeBrusk stepped up. Scoring two crucial goals (including the Bruins’ go-ahead goal in the third period), the 21-year-old forward has seven points in his first seven playoff games.
And with a 7-4 win over Toronto, Boston is moving on to the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was a big moment for the Bruins, and DeBrusk was a major part of it. The rookie has shown no fear in his postseason debut.
Bruins fans might also remember that DeBrusk scored in his regular season debut in October, 2017. It caused his father, former NHL player Louie DeBrusk, to shed tears of joy.
An interesting footnote in hockey history is that there’s a current Bruins player who connects the two DeBrusk hockey generations: Zdeno Chara.
The Boston captain is in his 20th NHL season. His veteran leadership was instrumental in helping the Bruins defeat the Maple Leafs. Yet Chara was once a young rookie, like Jake. And in the Slovakian defenseman’s 16th career game, he fought Louie.
Zdeno Chara is so old that Jake DeBrusk’s dad fought him in Chara’s second-ever career fight. 1999. Jake DeBrusk was 1 pic.twitter.com/24YXNYdpWl
— Anthony Gulizia (@AnthonyGulizia) April 26, 2018
“It was probably the most helpless I felt in a fight ever in my career was fighting Zdeno Chara,” the older DeBrusk recalled in a 2017 interview with Bob Stauffer.
“The best part was nobody said they won, so it must’ve been a tug of war or something,” DeBrusk told the Boston Globe’s Anthony Gulizia in February. “[Chara] was still pretty new to it, so [my dad] was thankful for that. He told me one time he was trying to hit him and throwing as hard as he could and hit nothing but air.”
“What I do remember, very, very vividly is that I was so far away from him when he stretched me out that I actually did try throwing a punch and it was about a foot and a half short of hitting him,” Louie said in the interview with Stauffer. “As soon as that happened, I thought, ‘This is not good. This is not a good position to be in.'”
The Bruins, with both Chara and Jake DeBrusk, begin their second round series against the Lightning on Saturday in Tampa.
Note: A previous version of this article stated that it was Chara’s second NHL fight when it appears to have actually been his third.
