Devils 4, Wild 3: Haula 'bout that

Led by offensive heroics from Jesper Bratt and Erik Haula, the Devils were able to grind out another win at home.

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It wasn’t perfect – far from it! – but the New Jersey Devils were able to pick up another two points against the Minnesota Wild. A few observations from the game:

A driving force

No Nico Hischier, no problem. Lindy Ruff opted to keep the lines in tact as much as possible without the captain. He moved Mikey McLeod to Hischier’s spot on the 2nd line and inserted Chris Tierney on the 4th line. Everything else was the same, which means Jesper Bratt got the short end of the stick in the top-6.

While Ondrej Palat is solid middle-6 winger, and McLeod is one of the league’s best in his role, those were not the best of linemates for Bratt.

I mean, Palat has 25 points over his last 57 regular season games (35 point pace) and McLeod is generally stapled to the 4th line. That’s an underwhelming group for one of the league’s highest scorers to play with – and it didn’t matter one bit.

Bratt was tasked with driving his own line and, boy, did he do just that. He was everywhere against the Wild.

His passing was clinical. He was dancing his way through the neutral zone. He took on more of a shooting role, firing quality shots when the opportunities were there rather than deferring to a pair of players who don’t shoot (or score) all that much in Palat and McLeod. He was fantastic.

It would’ve been reasonable to expect a quiet night from Bratt against a solid Wild lineup. That was far from the case.

He posted a game-high 89.93% expected goal share at 5v5 and scored a goal – and had another one nullified due to Nathan Bastian going offside.

Bratt was also lethal on the power play, producing two points (one goal, one assist) in less than two minutes of ice on the man advantage.

Put it all together and Bratt had a three point night while posting sparkling underlying metrics and leading all players – by far – in Game Score.

Jack Hughes may be the superstar on the team but Bratt proved once again that he’s more than capable of stealing the show on any given night. It is such a luxury to have a player like him on the ‘2nd’ line.

Calder, anyone?