It wasn't the swine flu. Although Jake DeBrusk admits it certainly made for a more compelling tale from the road after the Boston Bruins returned from China.
"I don't think it was actually swine flu," he said. "But it felt like swine flu. Very similar. Very awful."
As the Bruins went through China during the preseason, with games in Shenzhen and Beijing, everything was going through their 21-year-old winger. "We went on a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride to the airport and then a flight for 12 hours after that. That was tough."
Inconsistency, it seems, was already plaguing DeBrusk.