VANCOUVER — The only road runner Jake DeBrusk knew when he was little was Wile E. Coyote’s cartoon nemesis. So it was for most hockey players born outside of Quebec in the 1990s.

Yvan “The Roadrunner” Cournoyer, the dynamo who won 10 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1960s and ’70s, was a name foreign to DeBrusk until the Vancouver Canuck recently saw the Hall-of-Famer on Sportsnet’s list of single-season goal-scorers with an historic percentage of power-play goals.

Among players who have scored at least 15 goals during a National Hockey League season, only Cournoyer, with 16 of his 18 goals on the power play during his sophomore campaign 50 years ago, has had a more lopsided share of PPGs than DeBrusk has this season.

The 29-year-old winger’s 19th goal of the season, scored on deflection during the Canucks’ 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Saturday, was his 16th on the power play. 

DeBrusk’s 84.2-per-cent share of power-play goals trails only Cournoyer’s 88.9 in NHL history.

“I looked him up; he actually had a really good career,” DeBrusk, who grew up in Edmonton, said after Monday’s Canuck practice. “But when I first heard about him, it didn’t ring a bell. People in Montreal, don't hate me. I was there for Guy Lafleur’s standing ovation (before he passed away in 2022) and that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a game.”

Before signing a seven-year, $38.5-million contract to join the Canucks two summers ago, DeBrusk spent his first seven NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins so, he said, has great respect for the........

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