By all accounts, Jake DeBrusk enjoyed an excellent development year in Providence of the AHL and is the closest of the Bruins’ three first-round draft choices to making the roster. He should get a good crack at filling the B’s hole on the left wing when training camp begins in September.

Early in the Calder Cup playoffs, both Providence coach Kevin Dean and B’s executive director of player personnel John Ferguson raved about DeBrusk’s progress as well as his attitude throughout the year, especially after he watched several teammates get called up. Both pointed to DeBrusk’s father, former NHLer and current Edmonton Oilers analyst Louie DeBrusk, as a sound influence who has kept his young charge grounded, making sure he’s concerned with what’s important and leaving behind what’s not.

So when we ran into the elder DeBrusk at the NHL scouting combine last week in Buffalo, we picked his brain on what he’s tried to impart on his son as DeBrusk climbed the ranks. And first off, Louie — who now views his son’s development through the dual prisms of an NHL insider and a proud papa — let the kid choose hockey, not the other way around.

“He wasn’t a kid who was on skates at 3. It was more 6, 7, 8,” Louis DeBrusk said. “We lived in Phoenix and my wife was actually the one who brought him to the rink for the first time and put him in full gear to skate and let him bomb around. But he always had a stick in his hand, from an early age. He carried one of this mini-sticks around like it as almost a security blanket. I just didn’t want to force it on him. We just wanted to go at a certain pace. And he played other sports, too. He played baseball, he played tennis. You’re not thinking he’s an NHL player when he’s a kid. Even when he was a teenager I wasn’t thinking that.”

Jake DeBrusk projects to be a much different player than his father, who topped the 100 penalty minutes mark in three of his NHL seasons and had one year in which he posted 294 penalty minutes in 50 IHL games. While the father was gifted with broad shoulders, the son was given a soft pair of hands, the kind that made him the 14th overall pick in 2015. But despite the pedigree, Jake was never considered a can’t-miss-kid. For five consecutive years, said his father, he was the smallest kid on his team. It wasn’t until he exploded for 42 goals with Swift Current in his draft year that he elevated himself to the top of his age group.

He’s had three long years. There was the first taste of development camp and his first pro training camp. Then came a challenging final junior season in which he was traded from Swift Current to Red Deer, suffered through an excruciating injury upon taking a slap shot to the groin, before playing deep into spring in the Memorial Cup. And finally, last season was his first pro year, a wakeup call for anybody.

While the father and son are very different players, Louie said Jake’s approach to the game should not differ.

“It’s always been about work ethic with me,” the elder DeBrusk said. “I’ve always been a hard-nosed player and that’s how I made it. I grinded, I fought. I had some skill but I wasn’t a skilled player but any means. But for skilled players, their biggest asset can be their work ethic.

“If you’re skilled and you work hard, you’re really hard to slow down. You can’t always rely on your skill to get you by. You have to have that work ethic and you make sure you’re doing the right things to get better. I’ve kind of preached that to him. There have been some bumps along the road here where he’s had to grind through some adversities he’s had to face with injuries and things like that. But my message has been ‘Love the game, respect and put your best foot forward.’ That’s kind of what he’s done. I thought he had a real strong year down there and got better. And that’s the whole process of it. You have to learn to be a pro.”

A big part of that is learning to play away from the puck and being a complete player.

“Teams are looking for (two-way) players now,” said Louie. “They’re not looking for (strictly offensive players), unless your Connor McDavid. And even he’s working on his defensive game, because he wants the puck back. The greatest players are typically good at getting the puck back because they want it so bad. But nowadays, if you want to be successful and have a long career, you have to be reliable at both ends of the ice. I think he’s always understood that, but this year really showed him how hard he had to work in that aspect.”

Unless something goes terribly awry, Jake DeBrusk will not put up the same penalty minutes as his father. But that doesn’t mean he can’t, or shouldn’t, get his hands dirty on an occasion. In his first pro season, he dropped the gloves a couple of times, in one bout giving away close to 50 pounds.

“The game has changed a lot, but I’ve always encouraged him to demand your space out there,” Louie said. “You have to let the opposition know you’re not going to take the abuse they’re going to give you. People might look down on that, but I’ve always felt there’s a time and a place to let that emotion come out. Because if you don’t battle for that space, they’re going to take advantage of you.”

Louie DeBrusk watched every Providence game online and wasn’t afraid to do a little fatherly boasting. He’s happy the way his son got over the first-year hump. After having difficulty finding the back of the net to start the season, Jake eventually found his groove, and scored his share of pretty goals. But the one that impressed the old man the most was his empty-netter that sealed the Baby Bruins’ Game 7 win over Hershey.

“People might look at it as just an empty net goal. But protecting a one-goal lead, a minute left, Game 7?” the father said, pride showing “At the start of the year, he would not have been on the ice in that situation. It just shows you how far he’s come.”

And in everyone in the Bruins organization hopes it just the beginning for Jake DeBrusk.

McQUAID WOULD GIVE ’EM FIGHTING CHANCE

I’ve always believed that if you’re starting an expansion team in a new hockey market, as is Las Vegas, it wouldn’t hurt to have a guy who knows how to use his fists, even in today’s fight-phobic game. The Golden Knights could have one such available to them if Adam McQuaid (right) is made available by the Bruins in the expansion draft.

Vegas GM George McPhee said last week that he wouldn’t be looking for a one-dimensional fighter-type of player, but he believes toughness should be an element in team building.

“We certainly wouldn’t be bringing anyone in just for that, but there are those of us that still believe it should be in the game,” McPhee said. “The threat of the fight is just as important as the fight, to keep people honest. We’ve seen the stick work can get pretty nasty. I personally don’t ever need to see a fight, but I understand it’s still an important part of the game to keep certain players honest.”