PRE-GAME AVAIL RECAP
SEATTLE, WA - The Devils will be without forward Erik Haula on Monday night in Seattle when they wrap up the Western portion of their current road trip. Haula, who was injured in the game against the Sharks over the weekend, underwent testing in Seattle on his ankle. Head coach Sheldon Keefe confirmed that Haula is dealing with an ankle sprain that could potentially keep him out for several weeks.
Haula will be further evaluated on Wednesday by Devils team doctors when the club returns to New Jersey. In his absence, Justin Dowling will take the third-line center spot between Paul Cotter and Dawson Mercer.
Keefe is confident in moving Dowling into the 3C spot, particularly with how the line had been playing recently and some previous chemistry as well.
“A lot of good things from that line," head coach Sheldon Keefe said on Sunday. "Maybe Paul Cotter’s best game in a long time, if not the whole season for me, from start to finish. Not just because of the goal, but just his overall play. And Cotts has played well with Dowling, so we’ll see how that goes.”
Optional
The Devils hosted an optional morning skate today, although the entire team was at the arena for meetings. Those who skated today were: Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Ondrej Palat, Tomas Tatar, Stefan Noesen, Paul Cotter, Justin Dowling, Nathan Bastian and Kurtis MacDermid.
Jake Allen was the lone goalie on the ice.
Facing the Kraken
In the meantime, New Jersey is getting back to a more familiar game-day schedule. Their past three games have all been different matinee outings (5, 3, and 1 p.m. starts), and Keefe hopes that returning to a bit of a normal routine might help spark his team back into the win column.
The key against Seattle will be managing the neutral zone, which Keefe said gave the club difficulty the last time these two teams met.
"For me, we’ve got to defend our net way better and make it harder to get to our net, is what I should say. Coming into the nuetral zone, especially," he elaborated. "And it’s a challenge. Last time we played this Seattle team, they had their way with us in that regard. So we’ve got to really manage that well. If there’s one area, that’s going to be our focus today, to make it a lot harder there and hope that that tighter defensive play will result in some better offensive pucks going the other way for us.”
