It\u2019s been quite the season for Brazeau, who signed a two-year contract with Pittsburgh in the offseason, his first NHL one-way deal. He now has 11 goals in 23 games, which ties his career high set in 76 games last season.<\/p>\n
When Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas was in Toronto, he signed Brazeau to his first professional contract after he impressed with 61 goals in 68 games during his final junior campaign with the OHL\u2019s North Bay Battalion.<\/p>\n
But after spending time in both the ECHL and AHL, Brazeau was at a crossroads in the summer of 2021. He didn\u2019t have any offers, and was preparing to go back to school and regroup. He had even enrolled in kinesiology courses at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
But then the Bruins made an offer, and he headed East. Brazeau made his NHL debut on Feb. 19, 2024 and put together a couple of strong seasons. That led to Brazeau joining the Penguins, and he got off to a hot start.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone said to me, he’s getting a second chance. I think with Justin Brazeau, it’s not a second chance. It’s his first chance in a in a role like that,\u201d Dubas said.<\/p>\n
Dubas said when they signed Brazeau, they knew he could score because they had seen him do it at other levels, as he\u2019s got that touch and sense in and around the net.<\/p>\n
They liked how Brazeau had improved at protecting pucks low and making plays from that part of the ice.<\/p>\n
And what stood out during training camp and the exhibition season was Brazeau\u2019s ability to disrupt pucks defensively and return possession to the Penguins. That added up to Brazeau taking advantage of playing alongside Evgeni Malkin and Anthony Mantha and converting his chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve known him for a long time. He’s an easy person to root for, and want to see him do well,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cI think this is his first chance in that sort of a role, and full marks to him for taking advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brazeau tallied twice in the season opener on Oct. 7 at Madison Square Garden, and picked up four goals in his first four games. Overall, he had six goals in his first 12 games while welcoming his first child, son Jackson, with fianc\u00e9 Madison.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I could kind of be that player,\u201d Brazeau said. \u201cI mean, obviously, coming into the year, I wouldn’t have said I would have been a point per game guy. I think just the belief that I can play and be a good player, not just kind of a fourth-line guy. I think I’ve believed in myself like that, and just got to kind of keep building on it and keep working.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been quite the season for Brazeau, who signed a two-year contract with Pittsburgh in the offseason, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-377554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}