MONTRÉAL — Welcome to Seattle, Will Bruin.
The offseason acquisition opened his Sounders account in exhilarating fashion by toe-poking in the equalizer in the 94th minute on Saturday in a 2-2 road draw with the Montreal Impact. Bruin entered as a substitute in the 85th minute and salvaged the first point of the Sounders’ season.
“That’s what we brought [Bruin] here for,” said Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer. “Right place, right time. That seems to be the storyline of his career. He seems to just bang goals in in key moments.”
Bruin certainly has a knack for goal. He scored once in Sounders preseason after amassing 50 goals in his six years with the Houston Dynamo. He had a tough final season in Houston, which ended with a career-low four goals, and his last league tally came last June 26. It’s been a long time coming for Bruin, and he’s relieved to see the ball finally go back into the net.
“It definitely is the monkey off my back,” said Bruin. “Hopefully that opens the flood gates and there are more to come.”
Bruin has come off the bench in his first two matches, sitting behind Jordan Morris in Schmetzer’s 4-2-3-1 formation. That lineup allows for a lot of creativity and playmaking in the midfield, but not a lot of extra options up top for Bruin to slot into. A target striker by nature — he is a more back-to-goal, over-the-top attacker than Morris — Bruin is a great option to have late in the game if Seattle is need of a goal.
“That’s a No. 9’s goal,” said midfielder Cristian Roldan, whose cross to Morris set up Bruin’s finish. “[Bruin] came in for eight minutes and had two shots…We’re excited to have a guy like that coming in late. Not a lot of teams have that.”
How long Bruin continues to stay on the bench, though, may shift as the season unfolds. He is a production machine, and if Saturday’s performance is a harbinger of things to come, he may become more of a factor earlier in games.
“I didn’t come here expecting to be a starter from day one,” Bruin said, “but the way I look at it is I take my opportunities when they come and hopefully make the coach have to make tough decisions.”
