Devils’ Jesper Bratt an under-the-radar elite player with no shortage of motivation

NEWARK, N.J. — Motivation has long been ingrained in Jesper Bratt.

“It’s been there ever since I was a younger player,” said Bratt, who still keeps a journal to document his on- and off-ice goals. “I would hear a lot, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s talented, he’s very fast, but he’s too small. He’s never going to be anything.’ I’ve heard these things all the time.”

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He’s still small by traditional NHL standards, 5-foot-10 (maybe) and a solidly built but still slight 174 pounds. He’s a sixth-round pick who plays alongside either Jack Hughes or Nico Hischier, a pair of No. 1 picks who are the superstar and the standout captain of the Devils. But it’s Bratt, with his speed, intelligence and lethal shot over the last few years, who is just as important to what the Devils have built and are trying to become.

“He’s an extremely focused guy,” Hughes said of his most-of-the-time linemate. “He just grinds his summers — it’s no coincidence he comes back better every year.”

“From the get-go,” said Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, “Jesper Bratt had to be part of the long-term future of this team. Had to.”

If Bratt is still an under-the-radar elite player, his NHL beginnings were basically no radar at all. He was the 162nd pick in the 2016 draft, a shot in the dark. When he came to Plymouth, Mich., later that summer with Sweden’s world junior showcase team, Fitzgerald was part of the Devils contingent on hand.

“He was very strong on his feet for a smaller player,” Fitzgerald said. “I thought, ‘Hey, we may have something here.'”

A year later, Bratt came over from Sweden for good at 19, ready to get some experience at the 2017-18 Devils training camp before heading for one last amateur season in London of the OHL. He never left Jersey.

“I told (former Devils coach) John Hynes, ‘We can’t send him there. We need him here,'” Fitzgerald said.

Bratt stayed and played most of that rookie season on the top line with Hischier, then 18 and fresh off being drafted at No. 1, and Taylor Hall, who would win the Hart Trophy in his lone full season with the Devils as he willed them to a playoff berth.

Bratt had 35 points that season and stayed in that half-a-point-per-game range for the next three seasons as the Devils took steps back on the ice but beefed up their core off it, adding Hughes as the No. 1 pick in 2019.

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But Bratt didn’t stay put in his motivation to become something more than a dependable player and occasional scorer. He’s long worked with skating coach Daniel Broberg at home in Stockholm. Two years ago, he added shooting work with skills coach Taro Nihei, an elusive character in the Swedish hockey world but one who has helped unlock a powerful shooting side of Bratt’s game. He went from 44 goals in his first four seasons to 58 in the past two.

Having Hughes alongside certainly doesn’t hurt either. But Bratt’s success is not just a product of No. 86.

“With Daniel, I’ve worked a long time not just on edges and footwork, but position on the ice, stuff like that,” Bratt said. “With Taro the last couple of years I think I kind of took that step from being a good skater and a good passer to being a scorer, someone who can be ready when the puck comes anywhere on the ice. When you play with Jack you have to be ready to bury it whenever he finds you because he’s so good at it.”

The Timo Meier trade last season brought the Devils to a new level. Fitzgerald’s sneaky good acquisition of Tyler Toffoli over the summer gives the Devils a top six that can match with almost any team in the East — Bratt-Hughes-Toffoli tore it up in the preseason and now, with the Devils having stumbled a bit out of the gate at 1-1-1, Lindy Ruff can mix and match his top six forwards easily. So Bratt and Hischier, who played together often in their first six years, can be reunited as they have been in recent days.

At 25, Bratt is now the senior member of the homegrown Devils core. He’ll hit 400 games next month, a mark that only Damon Severson and Miles Wood reached in the last decade and a run that was mostly without success. Last season, the Devils took a big step forward, making the playoffs for the first time since Bratt’s rookie year and winning a playoff round for the first time since the 2012 Stanley Cup Final run.

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Much like his own desire to get better, Bratt has no interest in the status quo, even after just one good season.

“It’s really what every successful team needs, I think, to start at the lower levels a bit, build that younger core over a few years so that one day it’s an older core and they’re ready to bring home that trophy,” he said. “I think our window to win is just opening. We really did it the right way.”

And that included the eight-year deal worth $ 7.875 million per that Bratt signed in June. With all the high picks and big contracts the Devils have amassed in recent years, Bratt playing through the final season of a one-year, $5.45 million deal last season caused some reaction around the league. The thought was that maybe this unsung player was also unsung within his own organization.

“For years I’ve been hoping he’d get a deal done,” Hughes said. “Even before last year because I knew he was going to have another great year.”

Fitzgerald wasn’t worried. “When he signed his last two deals, we wanted him long-term. The business side wasn’t aligned then,” he said. “You look at, where are we going to be? We always need people who want to buy in. Jesper’s bought in since the day he got here.”

And he’s rewarded the Devils’ faith and patience by becoming maybe the best player you don’t know enough about. And he’s still not ready to stop.

“Honestly, being a sixth-round pick coming in here, I wanted to show the organization that I was better than that,” Bratt said. “It was an amazing moment, getting drafted, but I still wanted to show them. I think I’ve taken all that motivation and worked hard, used it the right way to be part of this team and what we’re trying to do.”

The Athletic’s Michael Russo contributed to this story.

(Photo: John Jones / USA TODAY Sports)