THREE THINGS: Reaching New Heights

Jesper Bratt sprung onto the scene three seasons ago, relatively unassumingly. He was a prospect that perhaps not many knew about and forced his way onto the opening night roster in 2017-18 with a strong training camp. Since then, the Swedish forward has continued to mine his craft and in his third NHL season found a pace we had yet to see from the 21-year-old. At the NHL pause, Bratt was one of the Devils hottest players, capitalizing on every opportunity in reach.

1. A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

Walk into the Devils locker room, one thing is undeniable. Jesper Bratt and Pavel Zacha are the best of friends you could ever come across.

And it turns out they also complement each other on the ice as well. Bratt played nearly 260 of his 839 minutes alongside his friend, particularly in the latter part of the season when the line of Bratt-Zacha-Gusev was formed.

In the final six games before the pause, Bratt was riding a wave of five goals in six games, while pal Pavel also benefited with four points in his final six games.

The three linemates certainly had fans talking and anxious to see what they would do on the ice together. Bratt, Zacha and Gusev spent a lot of time on the ice assisting each other on the ice. There were 11 such instances where Bratt and Zacha combined for points in a game on a single goal, while there were 15 such incidents when a combination of Bratt and/or Zacha or Gusev were combined for points on a goal.

2. CAREER HIGHS

Bratt playing with Zacha also helped Jesper reach career-highs this season. Bratt reached broke his career-high in goals on February 25th, scoring against the Detroit Red Wings on the road for his 14th goal of the season.

Bratt surpassed that mark to enter the NHL pause with a career-high 16 goals and on a point-scoring tear with 16 points in his last 20 games played and 25 points in the final 39 games of the season where Bratt picked up 12 goals and 13 assists.

In fact, over the course of those final 39 games Bratt showed a new maturity to his game and was one of the Devils most depended on players. He had the third-most points (25), behind only Kyle Palmieri (26) and Nikita Gusev, who lead the team with 30.

3. HE SHOOTS, HE (OFTEN) SCORES

There were times during the season where Jesper would find himself on a breakaway, or with a clear chance to get the puck past a goaltender and you just knew it was going to result in a goal. He had a scoring touch that we hadn't yet seen as he played his third year in the NHL. And that's probably because Bratt had the second-best shooting percentage on the Devils roster for players who played 60-plus games.

The 21-year-old had 16 goals when the season came to a pause, which wasn't only his career-high but came on 101 shots this season, good for a 15.9% shooting percentage.

Bratt was second only to Kyle Palmieri, and by a slim margin. Palmieri lead the Devils with a 16.1 shooting percentage.