Let's Chat Bratt | 10 TAKEAWAYS

It will be Jesper Bratt that kicks off this edition of 10 Takeaways presented by Ticketmaster because he's been all the talk lately as the Devils make their final push to the post-season.

We've seen Bratt take his game to a supersonic level over the last couple of weeks, this last week in particular, and it's earned him both NHL honors and approaching Devils franchise history.

Since Jack went down with his injury, Bratt has had an 'A' stitched onto his jersey and it's stayed there. He's the perfect person to step into those shoes, especially at such a crucial moment of the season.

"We're very lucky to have Jesper," Tom Fitzgerald said on a recent episode of the 100% Hockey Podcast. "He's at the level he's at for one reason and one reason only. He's a student of the game. He's 100 percent dedicated to his craft. This guy is learning and pushing himself every day. He takes notes daily on where his game is at, after games, and where he wants to be. If he's not the hardest working guy I've ever been around, then he's up there, Top 3."

And while the title of this edition is Let's Chat Bratt, it isn't all about the Swedish star, as head coach Sheldon Keefe has stressed how much of a collective group effort this stretch of hockey will be as the team gears up to clinch a playoff spot. And the collective, up and down the lineup, are all doing their part.

Let's get into it...

1.

Jesper Bratt continues to impress. His drive and motivation to continuously get better seems to have no limits. Especially now, in the absence of Jack Hughes, his regular running mate, Bratt has been phenomenal, racking up points during this stretch run.

In the past five games alone, Bratt has 10 points (3g-7a) and this most recent stretch was also franchise-record tying (soon to be setting).

His 60 assists this season ties him with Scott Stevens for most assists in a single season by a Devils player. A record that has withstood some top tier Devils talent over the years.

It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that Stevens’ record was tied – off another three-point game for Bratt. Players over the years have gotten close but there it stood since 1993-94, four years before Bratt was even born, before another player would hit the mark.

It's pretty incredible to think that with all the talent that has made its way through the Devils roster since that 1993-94 season, Stevens' record has stood the test of time - until now.

Please standby as we go through the next few takeaways dedicated to Jesper:

2.

On Monday morning Bratt was named the NHL's 2^nd Star of the Week. It was the stretch of hockey for Bratt that saw him accumulate nine points in three games with two goals and seven assists.

We're so lucky here in New Jersey to watch Bratt flourish and we've been along for the ride his entire career. The story will never escape him - he is a sixth-round draft pick that has worked his way into the leagues Top 10 calibre type player.

He's got the stats to prove every bit of it.

As of this morning, he sits tied for 8th in the league with Vegas' Jack Eichel with 80 points, two ahead of Colorado’s Cale Makar. Bratt finds himself ranked among the very best in the NHL, because he is in fact one of them as well.

3.

And while there might be times where it doesn't feel like there's enough respect given to Bratt's name on the outside, Canadian hockey legend Cassie Campbell-Pascall, who is a part of the NHL on ESPN broadcast crew shared a story with me this week that is a reminder that while perhaps Bratt doesn't get the same type of headlines, he does get the attention and gameplanning around from his opponents.

Cassie relayed a story to me that I think Devils fans would want to hear.

She was in Dallas, talking to young defenseman Thomas Harley recently about his time representing Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Harley, 23, was a late addition to Team Canada and as he was soaking in the whole experience, he began picking the brains of the other Canadian defensemen on the roster.

As Cassie tells the story, Bratt was a player that Team Canada defensemen shared a consensus on:

"I asked Thomas Harley what were some of the things he learned from being around the Team Canada defensemen. And he said they were talking, and generally they would say, 'Who is the toughest guy to stop?' and they would pick each other's brains about it. And he said that the common guys were (Mikko) Rantanen and Jesper Bratt."

"He said they were talking about how shifty (Bratt) is and just so good on his edges and has a ton of deception in his game. He goes 'He's one of those underrated guys'"

Cassie even shared that in her pre-game chat with Sheldon Keefe in Dallas she brought up Harley's comments.

"In our press conference, I asked Sheldon Keefe (about Harley's comments) and I said, 'Are you surprised by that?' and he goes "You know, when I was with the Leafs, I was, we were very aware of Jesper Bratt, but when I got here to New Jersey, that's when I realized, 'Holy smokes, this guy is really good.'"

Cassie also shared that one of her former colleagues told her that Team Sweden players from the 4 Nations Face-Off said that they felt Bratt was their best player during the 10-day tournament.

No surprise here to us Devils faithful!

4.

As of this morning it's been seven games since Jack Hughes was injured against Vegas.

Without Jack, the team has scored 20 goals.

Bratt has a point on 12 of the 20 and has been on the ice for 13.

5.

Lest we forget our captain.

Nico constantly quietly goes about his business. The other night in Pittsburgh, he overtook Jack Hughes as the team leader in goals this season, scoring his 28th and is on a current run of four points (2g-2a) in four games. His 28 goals is his second-highest goal output of his career (his tops is 31 from 2022-23) and while we praise him for the complete two-way forward he is, he’s also super charged the power play this season, with a career-high 23 power play points.

He, in fact, does it all.

It will be a race to the finish between Hischier and Sidney Crosby as to who takes the most faceoffs this season. They’re neck-and-neck and it will be just the two of them until seasons-end.

Nico overtook Crosby on Monday as the league-leader in faceoffs taken with 1,504 (Crosby is 1,501). They are the only two players in the league to have taken more than 1,350 faceoffs this season. And their success-rate is separated by such a slim margin.

Crosby holds the top spot with 845 wins while Nico clocks in at 829. That’s a 56.3 percent success-rate for Crosby and 55.1 percent rate for Hischier.

6.

I am so pumped for the re-launch of the One-Time All Stars podcast with Cory Schneider and Brian Boyle.

The first episode drops tomorrow and if the teaser clip tells us anything, this episode will have a couple of gems.

Be sure to be on the lookout for the first episode tomorrow!

7.

You can’t ask for much more than what Cody Glass has provided as a newcomer at the trade deadline. One of the things that Sheldon Keefe and Tom Fitzgerald talked about after the acquisitions of both he and Daniel Sprong was the hope to be able to unlock some of their offense that perhaps had been slightly on the wayside.

It’s certainly been unlocked in Glass. The beginning of his tenure as a Devil is off to an energized start. He has five points (2g-3a) in his first five games with the Devils and is a a plus-5.

"Very, very smart player, you watch him play whether it's on offense or defense he's making reads all over," Keefe said. "Part of it is picking up the system but it's a lot easier to do when you're a smart player and you're processing the game well. I think he's got a really good head about him. He's made really good, simple readsthat are pretty universal in our game that he's getting right that shows a level of intelligence and level of skill."

Glass has fit right in not just on the ice, but Keefe also alluded to how well he's seamlessly woven his way into the locker room dynamics with his bright personality.

Those things can't be underestimated.

8.

NHL General Managers are in Florida for the next few days for their annual GM Meetings and it was revealed by TSN that Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald shared among his peers an emotional story when it comes to protecting players from devastating cuts and lacerations. He shared his story, as Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun recounts, not as a GM or hockey executive but as a father with first-hand experience, emotionally sharing with his peers the injury his son Casey endured in a late-December game with Hartford.

LeBrun:

"New Jersey Devils GM/President of Hockey Operations Tom Fitzgerald spoke to the group this morning and he shared with them his experience as a hockey father. His son Casey Fitzgerald, on December 28th in a game for Hartford suffered a very scary injury to his neck from a skate cut and needed surgery, obviously Tom Fitzgerald was watching the game on his phone with his wife, as it happened he wasn't quite sure what happened at first what was going on.

"Luckily Casey Fitzgerald made a full recovery but what Tom Fitzgerald shared is he got choked up as he talked to the group about living through that and his message to the group was, is there a way to get through to our players, to ask them, how to make it feel to your benefit if they saw that."

Fitzgerald also sits on a committee, formed last year, for cut resistant equipment.

You can watch the full recounting of the meeting from LeBrun here:

9.

Had to share this sweet story that Brenden Dillon shared with me. We were chatting about what it's like to be a dad while playing in the NHL and the experience of watching his daughters grow up in the midst of his career. Brenden and his wife Emma have two daughters, Elton, who is almost three, and Elowen, who was born in December. We were talking about experiencing his hockey career at a different level now that he has children to share it with and his eyes especially lit up when talking about Elton, who is at the age now where she has a grasp on what it is her dad does for work.

He might have a fiesty one on his hands!

“My daughter turns three in May and I’m hoping that she remembers Dad the hockey player but at the same time, for myself and my wife to be able to see her reactions and people ask ‘Hey, what does your dad do?’, ‘He plays hockey’. She really takes pride. She knows I’m number 5. She likes to hold on to a hockey stick, like Inside/Out, the movie. Now when she’s carrying her stick around her head and banging it on walls and stuff, I have to tell her ‘We have to have our stick on the ice, like Riley (the main character from Inside/Out).”

10.

What I have come to learn about working with Sheldon Keefe over the last year is how intentional he is about everything he says. That’s why my ears really perked up when I asked him about Simon Nemec’s return to the Devils lineup against the Edmonton Oilers.

Keefe was pretty clear that he couldn’t reward Nemec’s third period play against the Jets by putting him back in the lineup, instead he would have to wait his turn.

And it’s what he did with that time that was perhaps that most impressive to Keefe.

It would be easy to praise a player for scoring the game-winning goal, fresh off of being a healthy scratch, but that’s not where Keefe’s insight led.

“For me, it’s more than just a response today," "His effort and response today was set up because of his response after that (Winnipeg) game. The days between then and now, how he’s handled himself. I think we saw some real maturity and growth in Nemec and some accountability at the same time.

“That, to me, is every big as important, maybe even more important, than what goes on the ice, the maturity of being a professional. I was really happy with how he handled himself then, which is why you change the lineup to get him in and he did well with it.”

Just a day after Nemec’s return to the lineup and scoring against Edmonton, Simon wasn’t resting on his laurels either. About 15 minutes before the start of practice, Nemec was on the ice with skating coach Angelo Serse, working 1-on-1 on little intricacies of the game, from working on boxing out an opponent, to taking off down the ice with a burst of speed, the two spent a short session working at improving Nemec’s game.

Those moments don’t go unnoticed. And they’re the small moments of investment in long-term success.

Keefe sees it and recognizes it.