Bratt, Johnsson, Mercer Jelling as a Line | FEATURE

Jesper Bratt raced to the corner of the offensive zone where a collection of bodies battled for the puck Saturday afternoon. Boston's Charlie Coyle gained possession, but with Bratt bearing down on him, he attempted to whip the puck around the boards behind his own net. However, the puck struck a linesman and deflected toward the slot.
Rookie Dawson Mercer managed to collect the puck on the backhand with his body facing away from the net. Bratt, meanwhile, circled behind the net and set himself up at the opposite side of the crease.
Mercer, without hesitation, spun his body around and threw a pass to the tape of Bratt, who finished the play by burying the puck. More impressive than the perfectly placed pass by Mercer was 20-year-old's instincts to know exactly where Bratt would be, even though he was facing away from him. Perhaps he has eyes in the back of his head.
"It's one of those things where you call for the puck, but Dawson has a great hockey sense and probably knew I was there anyway," Bratt said after the game. "You want to make sure that we know where we are on the ice. I tried to call for it, but it looked like he already knew where I was. It was pretty easy to put the puck in the net."

As that line was breaking out of the defensive zone Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, Bratt saw an opening between the two Rangers defensemen in the neutral zone. Johnsson also saw it and barked at Mercer, who had the puck. Mercer quickly head manned a pass to spring Bratt for a breakaway goal.
"'Mango' (Johnsson) was yelling and I looked over to make that play," Mercer said. "Their D kind of shifted and their guy went off track. Bratt, with the speed he's got it was a nice target for me to hit and he went in there all alone."

Awareness and communication are the two necessary components for a productive line. When three players knows each other's tendencies and can play off of those tendencies, you'll find some chemistry. And building that type of awareness takes communication.
"We are starting to get used to playing with each other," Bratt said. "Ever since the first couple of games we've been talking a lot, talking off the ice. We're trying to learn from each other, we're trying to teach each other where we want to be on the ice, and what could be a successful game plan for us. We're starting to find that now and it's a lot of fun coming to the rink playing with these guys."
The Johnsson-Mercer-Bratt trio was united Oct. 26 against Calgary. Since that time, the three men have combined for 29 points (13G, 16A). Only twice has the threesome been held off the scoresheet since being combined.
The triumvirate has been particularly strong of late. In the past four games they've collected 16 points (6G, 10A) with Bratt (2G, 4A) and Mercer (2G, 4A) each posting four-game scoring streaks.
"Our speed. Our skating has been really good. We're staying on top of pucks and hunting pucks back," Bratt said of the reasons for the recent success. "We want to play down there (in the offensive zone). We want to play with speed. We want to create chances every time we're on the ice.
"I like the mentality we have on our line. We want to be the line every night."
Chemistry is a funny thing in hockey. Sometimes coaches put pieces together and think something is going to work, and it doesn't. Other times, circumstances happen that force a line combination which surprises with its quick connection.
"There's lots of things you can draw on the napkin or on a piece of paper and think this is going to work for us," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "Jesper has played well. His speed against other teams, his ability to get behind the opposition, his ability to go wide opens up opportunities for Dawson to make some plays. On the other wing, Andreas has skated really well. He's been in hard on the forecheck. He's disrupted the other team's breakouts."
The trio is still in the infancy stage at 10 games. But with continued communication and their complimentary assets, it may be the beginning of a beautiful union.
"All three of us love (playing with speed). We're talking all the time," Mercer said. "The three of us come back to the bench and chat. We know what we should have done or differently things, or if we did make a great play, we talk about that, too. We feed off each other. We're trying to build that chemistry as much as we can. That's been showing a lot out there lately."