The New Jersey Devils number one priority on their offseason checklist is to get Jesper Bratt signed to a contract extension. Who might be a good comp to use in negotiations?
Jesper Bratt’s last contract negotiation didn’t go well. Bratt was looking for a new deal from the New Jersey Devils, and he was willing to wait in Sweden until he got it. There was one major issue with that. We were in the middle of a pandemic, and Bratt likely didn’t realize just how long it would take him to come back to the United States once he came to an agreement.
Bratt signed his two-year, $5.5 million contract on January 10th. He wasn’t able to get into a game until January 28th, almost three weeks later. The pandemic made things complicated for the visa issues, something that also impacted Sami Vatanen’s availability. This season, it won’t get that far.
Bratt is arbitration-eligible, so the Devils and Bratt will go to a neutral party if they are unable to come to a deal themselves. There are a lot of issues the Devils and Bratt need to deal with this offseason. For one, the Devils don’t have a ton of cap space. They have plenty of cap space, don’t get us wrong, but their $23 million in space will fall once they sign everyone they need to. They have to fit Bratt, Miles Wood, Pavel Zacha, a replacement for P.K. Subban and Jimmy Vesey, and a hopeful upgrade in net with that $23 million. That quickly makes that money go much shorter than it looks on paper.
What could Jesper Bratt’s contract look like with the New Jersey Devils this offseason?
There have been plenty of contract negotiations that look similar to what Bratt’s will look like this season. We take the factors at hand (restricted free agent, around 22-24 years old, been in the NHL multiple years) to find a comparison for what Bratt could be looking to make this season.