Catching Career-Highs | 10 TAKEAWAYS

There are just 18 games left in the Devils' season and a question I've been asked a couple of times on Twitter these past few days is how many of the Devils players are having career years.
You'd be hard-pressed to get a player to talk about their individual accomplishments, and even if you do manage, they answer reluctantly.
But there are a number of players heading into the final weeks of the season who will continue to build on their career-high numbers. There are a variety of ways players are putting up career numbers, some may not be their overall output, but their special teams numbers are new career-highs. Others, like Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt, are straight-up having career years across the board.
Let's explore in this week's 10 Takeaways, presented by Ticketmaster.

2.

There's more when it comes to Jack's season:
His shooting percentage has nearly doubled his previous best at 14.8 percent.
And don't get me started on his zero penalty minutes.
(I really hope I haven't jinxed him there.)
To date, Jack has reached 15 multi-point games this season, almost double his previous high of eight.
He just keeps getting better and better, and he hasn't even reached his peak maturity.

3.

Just as obvious as Hughes' career year is Jesper Bratt's.
In his fifth NHL season, the Swedish 23-year-old has taken off and emerged into one of the most reliable players New Jersey has to count on.
His 65 points not only lead the Devils but is currently 30 more points than his previous high set in his rookie year back during the 2017-18 season. He's cracked the 20-goal mark for the first time, surpassing his previous high of 16, and his 18 power-play points are six more than his rookie-season career high.
Currently, Bratt is riding a seven-game point streak, which marks a new streak in his career.

4.

On the back-end, Ryan Graves in his first season with New Jersey has hit a new career-high in points (27), while Damon Severson although not quite at all his career-high numbers yet, has excelled on the man-advantage.
Severson has had the luxury of quarterbacking the first power-play unit for most of the season, his cast of characters staying relatively the same with Hughes, Bratt, Nico Hischier, and Nate Bastian. That combination has put an extra pep in Severson's power-play numbers. His five goals with the man-advantage are a career-high, and so are his 15 power-play points. In fact, Severson in his 56 games during the 2020-21 NHL season failed to score on the power-play and had just four assists in the same situation.

5.

Some players are having 'career years' but it might not feel the same impact because they're just in their second or third NHL season. Take for example Nathan Bastian, he's hit double-digits in goals for the first time sitting at 11 (one goal was scored while he was with Seattle), but he spent time over the last few years working his way into being an NHL regular. His four power-play points, well those are the first of his NHL career, and for the first time in his NHL career, he's been credited with a game-winning goal.
I can offer you the same type of 'career year' stats for several players with little track record before this season, take for example Jesper Boqvist, he has double the points of last years career-high, with 14, his five goals also mark a career-high, same for his nine assists.
Yegor Sharangovich's 36 points surpasses his rookie-year numbers (30pts), and Jonas Siegenthaler is far and away having the best offensive year of his career, especially for a defenseman not relied on in that capacity, with his 14 points (1g, 13a).

6.

Damon Severson has a new career-high in time on ice. Against the Canadiens, in the 3-2 shootout win, Severson logged 30:56, the highest minute total of his career, surpassing his previous high of 29:52 set earlier this season on Jan. 2, versus Washington. His power-play assist on Hughes' second goal of the night was also the 27-year-old's 59th power-play assist to tie him with Paul Martin, at sixth all-time in franchise history for defensemen. It was also his 70th point with the man-advantage, good for a sixth overall tie in franchise history with Martin and Rob Ramage.

7.

It was the best seeing Miles Wood finally suit up for a game this season. It feels even better that we can now put the topic to rest and just let Miles play.
After the game on Sunday, we waited for him to walk into the media room, and selfishly you get excited as a reporter because he's always going to give you the sound byte you want, I have certainly missed having one of the better talkers at my disposal! You could tell, just the way he was walking to the podium that his debut game took absolutely everything out of him in terms of energy. One of the first things he mentioned was how exhausted he was, and can you really blame the guy after not having played for four months.
After the cameras shut off, I asked him what was going to take over when he got home, his exhaustion or his adrenaline when it came to going to sleep.
"I really hope the exhaustion," he said with that goofy, toothless grin.

8.

Did you see how many amazing stars came out for the Champions Gala at Wolman Rink? What a list of not only Devils greats, but champions from a diverse range of sports, both Devils champions and Olympic champions all gathered together to offer their support. And then of course, the legendary Bruce Beck who played host to the entire event. The Gala was to benefit the Devils Youth Foundation and all the work they do to better and enrich the lives of children across both New Jersey and the New York areas.

Stay tuned in the coming days for a video recap of the event, you're not going to want to miss that!

9.

News out of the general manager meetings in Florida is that the NHL Draft will finally return to an in-person event. It's one of the great days on the NHL calendar and really hasn't been the same since the league was forced to go digital because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, I won't lie, I'm not sure we would have had that electric moment between Jack and Luke Hughes had the 2021 draft been held in person, so that was certainly fun, but to be there in person again will be a huge treat for everyone, especially the players involved who will get that true sense of being drafted.
Hard to believe that the last "in-person" draft was Jack's year, and he's just about to finish up his Entry-Level Contract. Pretty wild.

10.

I've been so lucky to have met and now work with Meghan Duggan since she's joined the Devils as manager, Player Development. Meghan has become a huge asset to the organization. There is so much that I learned when I joined the Devils franchise, moving from a media member to an internal member of an NHL franchise that I never would have known to even ask about. The inner workings of a franchise, the amount of people in all aspects that make it go round, the list is endless. And Meghan is a key cog in it all, overseeing so many little things that you may never figure are important parts of a player's development.
That's why I urge you to read
this
article to get a better sense of the impact that Meghan is making on your favorite franchise.
Plus she's just an awesome woman, and I equally love that her wife is a Canadian Olympian Gillian Apps, and I can side with Gillian during international competitions instead of Meghan and have a pretty fantastic text exchange!