In A Season Of Fits And Starts, Bratt Was Devils’ Model Of Consistency
A recurring subject in this forum throughout this disappointing Devils campaign has been their inconsistency. Every time you thought they had things figured out, they’d figuratively trip over their own skates. New Jersey’s mediocre record (38-37-5 following Thursday night’s thrilling 6-5 victory in Toronto) with two games remaining accurately reflects the bumpy ride.
There was, however, one beacon of consistency, a guy who showed up every night prepared to perform at the highest level, and that was wing Jesper Bratt. Jack Hughes may be the Devils’ most talented player and the face of the franchise—and slogging through a shoulder injury that required surgery surely limited his effectiveness—but Bratt was the team’s best player this season.
You might recall how I used the fact that the Devils hadn’t won or lost more than three games in a row as evidence of their schizophrenic nature. Well, Bratt never went more than three games all season without recording a point—while suiting up for every single game. In fact, Bratt has played 166 consecutive games following an illness that laid him up for a meaningless contest against Carolina in April 2022.
And he keeps getting better. Most Devils fans know Bratt as the team’s unheralded 2016 sixth round pick who caught our attention the following year with his jitterbug maneuvers down the right wing, with stops-and-starts that are so deceptive that I can feel my own hips displace from merely watching them.
But Bratt has become so much more over his seven seasons in New Jersey. He is an all-situation player. In nearly 58 minutes skating with captain Nico Hischier on the penalty kill, the Devils have been outscored, 3-1, this season, per NaturalStatTrick.com. To put that in perspective, the Devils otherwise surrendered approximately 7.5 goals per 60 shorthanded minutes, scoring two other times total in about 335 minutes.
Some of Bratt’s best plays this season were of the subtler variety, a backcheck or moving an opponent off the puck using his strong lower body that belies his 5-foot 10, 175-pound frame. I can recall former Devils Head Coach John Hynes benching a younger Bratt for a lack of commitment to a 200-foot game—that is no longer an issue.
He’s been underrated throughout his career, long after the bias from his Draft status dissipated. Fortunately, the Devils prioritized his re-signing last summer, finally inking him to a long-term deal after several heavyweight negotiation bouts with his agent in prior years. Bratt’s 8-year, $63 million contract through his prime unrestricted free agency years is a bargain in my book.
I’m sure there were plays during this dismal year that Bratt would want back, but they have receded into the overflowing landfill of all the team’s egregious mistakes that defined them. In other words, don’t blame Bratt for this season’s reversion to irrelevancy.
Though Bratt’s plus/minus (minus-6) looks poor on its face, that had more to with the club’s shoddy goaltending and its incompetence with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker—New Jersey has surrendered a league-high 26 goals into empty nets this season, seven more than second-worst Arizona.
Bratt’s advanced five-on-five NST metrics are much kinder—among the NHL’s 368 forwards who have logged at least 500 minutes this season, he is ranked 32nd in expected goals for percentage and 49th in high danger scoring chance percentage.
Of course, I haven’t even gotten to Bratt’s exceptional gifts in the offensive zone. Besides the incredible edge work in his skating, Bratt’s vision has sometimes appeared psychic, putting pucks on sticks that I didn’t see come open from a televised wide angle. He registered 55 assists this season, five off from the Devils’ 30-year old record set by Scott Stevens. Whereas Bratt’s shooting percentage failed to reach 10% in two of his first four seasons, he is now more of a threat from the circles, averaging 28 goals over the last three campaigns following his two-goal outburst in Thursday night’s third period.
The latter proved to be the game-winner with 74 seconds remaining. Bratt picked up a loose puck after a defensive zone faceoff and took off down the right flank. He squeezed past a whiffed check along the boards from Toronto defenseman Joel Edmundson as he crossed the blue line, and then with one of his patented quick moves, he cut to the dot and unleashed a heavy wrist shot that beat goalie Ilya Samsonov above his far side shoulder.
It was a brilliant individual effort in a season of many that might get lost because the team underachieved. They shouldn’t go unnoticed.