NHL Network’s latest top-20 winger list had plenty of familiar names on it - Nikita Kucherov, Jason Robertson and Mitch Marner among them - but Jesper Bratt wasn’t one of them. That omission is hard to miss when you look at what Bratt has actually done, because the Devils winger keeps piling up production while somehow still getting treated like an afterthought.
Bratt was the 162nd overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, a New Jersey selection with modest expectations attached to his 5'10 frame. He’s long since blown past that draft slot. In 634 career games, Bratt has put up 172 goals and 346 assists, good for roughly 0.82 points per game, and he’s become one of the central pieces of a Devils core trying to chase a Stanley Cup someday.
A big part of what makes Bratt so valuable is the skating. He can glide through the neutral zone, separate from defenders and open up ice for the players around him. That movement turns into chances, and those chances show up in the assist totals.
His recent numbers make the snub look even tougher to justify. Bratt is coming off a 71-point season with 49 assists, a line some people might even label a down year for him. In 2024-25, he set the Devils’ single-season assist record with 67, breaking Scott Stevens’ previous mark of 60 from the 1993-94 season.
That’s why it’s easy to argue Bratt belongs in the top 20 at his position. NHL Network went another direction, leaving him off a winger list that did include Lucas Raymond, Cutter Gauthier and Brady Tkachuk.
For the Devils, it’s another reminder that one of their most productive players still doesn’t seem to get the national respect his numbers demand. Last year, that conversation centered on Jack Hughes.
This year, it’s Bratt.
If the rankings were driven strictly by production, Bratt’s case gets even stronger. Among left-wingers, he finished fifth in assists and 10th in points.
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