The New Jersey Devils have a special player on their hands with winger Jesper Bratt. Bratt, named the second star of the week ending March 16th, has now up to 12 points (three goals and nine assists) since Jack Hughes went out of the lineup, including three straight games with three points.
Bratt was drafted in the 6th round (162nd overall) by the New Jersey Devils in the 2016 NHL Draft and has been a mainstay in the Devils lineup since 2018. As Shane Malloy of Hockey Prospect Radio puts it, the Devils found a six-million-dollar player in the draft. They absolutely did. Expect he will make $7.875 million a season when he signs his new eight-year, $63 million contract back on June 15, 2023.
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Bratt has had back-to-back 80-point seasons in his career and is carrying the Devils during this difficult stretch without Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Siegenthaler. However, at the beginning of the season, he was not viewed as a top-20 winger in the NHL.
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You can make the case that Bratt deserves to be on the list ahead of Travis Konency of the Philadelphia Flyers and maybe even Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins and Clayton Keller of the Utah Hockey Club. However, because of the way Keller plays, Bratt is definitely ahead of the first two.
If you look at Konency’s stats, he has 65 points (22 goals and 43 assists) in 69 games with the Flyers. Bratt, meanwhile, just notched his 20th goal in a win against Columbus on Monday night. In addition, he has 60 assists on the year, which is tied with Scott Stevens for the most assists in a single season in Devils franchise history. He is one shy of breaking the Devils’ all-time single-season mark.
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Meanwhile, Marchand scored 47 points (21 goals and 26 assists) in 61 games with the Bruins before being traded to the Florida Panthers. The Bruins are having a down year, but Marchand’s play has dipped, and while he won at the Four Nations, outside of a couple of players here and there, he was not that effective.
Jesper Bratt continues to be one of the more underrated players in the game. And look, his consistency has been an issue his whole career. There are times when he disappears for stretches in the season, but recently, those games and stretches have been fewer and fewer.
And speaking of the Four Nations, that tournament has allowed Bratt to take his game to another level. He got to play alongside some of the best players for Sweden and was the most noticeable Devil playing there. While he had two points (a goal and an assist) in the tournament, he played with Lucas Raymond, Joel Eriksson Ek, Leo Carlsson, and William Nylander.
They were able to create chances for the team when they were out on the ice. Bratt has done the same thing coming out of the Bratt, especially in this recent stretch for the Devils. Even his opponents are impressed. As Rickard Rakell of the Pittsburgh Penguins stated during the Four Nations, he is impressed with his speed and wants that in his arsenal.
