For those of you like myself who are not fluent in French, the word brule means to burn. Today we ask, has Gilbert Brule burned the Blue Jackets with his substandard NHL performance to date?

Selected as the sixth-overall pick in the 2005 amateur draft, Brule has yet to demonstrate any of the traits that made him a junior scoring star with the WHL’s Vancouver Giants. After scoring an impressive 87 goals and registering 185 points in 164 junior games, Brule has scored only 12 goals and registered 27 points in 126 NHL games spanning over three seasons. This is not the stuff first-rounders are supposed to be made of.

Columbus management, frustrated with Brule’s efforts this season, demoted the lad (on his 21st birthday) to the team’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse this past week.

To be fair, Brule has not been well recently (he is suffering with a bout of tonsillitis). He is also still young enough to carve out a successful NHL career.

But while Anze Kopitar, Martin Hanzal, Matt Niskanen, Paul Stastny and Kristopher Letang, all drafted after Brule in the 2005 draft, have begun to make their mark in the NHL, Brule continues to spin his wheels.

Is it too early to give up on Brule? Maybe so. But if the North Vancouver native doesn’t show us (and the Blue Jackets) something soon, he will go down as being one of the biggest first-round burns in recent memory.