MORNING SKATE RECAP
NEWARK, NJ - The Devils held an optional morning skate Tuesday before hosting the Florida Panthers. In attendance were forwards Timo Meier, Jesper Bratt, Ondrej Palat, Tomas Tatar, Nathan Bastian, Curtis Lazar and Kurtis MacDermid and goalie Jake Allen.
There could be some lineup changes when the team faces Florida.
“We’ve got a game-time decision or two that might impact the group,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We’ll have to see how that plays out tonight.”
Focused Mind
The Devils defeated the Panthers in back-to-back games in Florida on Nov. 12 and 14. The team was 3-1-0 entering the two-game series, but the club’s play really seemed to come together in that two-game stretch.
“It came from every single detail,” Bratt said. “Goaltending was great. Then our play without the puck, we didn’t give up a lot of chances. We played pretty tight and compact. In the D zone we kept them to the outside and we limited their rush chances.
“We didn’t turn a lot of pucks over. We didn’t feed their offense and skill players to carry through the neutral zone and play offense. We got pucks in behind them.”
The Devils’ two victories in Florida were the culmination of two months of work to fine tune their game. The result was arguably their best two efforts of the year. It also helped that when you face the defending Stanley Cup champions, it has a way of focusing the mind on the task at hand.
“You’re building your game and trying to establish a team identity, and you get down to Florida and it’s a daunting task,” Keefe said. “You have two games back-to-back against the Cup champs. That snapped our team into attention out of respect that you have for the opponent and not wanting to get embarrassed. So, you play a good game and execute a game plan. It was very good to serve as a template for us moving forward for what we can look like.”
The Devils went on quite a run following those games in Florida, a stretch of success that carried into the holiday break. However, since coming out of the holiday break the Devils haven’t had the same consistency of game. Maybe a repeat against the Cup champs is exactly the recipe the team needs.
“We’re trying to find our game here again consistently,” Keefe said. “We’ve seen some signs of that and decent results of late. Perhaps it’s another opportunity for us to look at it the same way and we’ve discussed how we can approach it similarly and hope for the same effort and result.”
PK Threat
The Florida Panthers feature a very deadly offense. And that includes when they have four skaters on the ice. The Panthers lead the NHL with 11 shorthanded goals, three more than second-place Toronto, 8.
“They’re creating turnovers, putting you in vulnerable spots and capitalizing the other way,” Keefe said. “We have to play through pressure because that creates turnovers and puts you in vulnerable spots. When they have us in vulnerable spots we have to get back and transition to defense quickly.”
Florida’s Sam Reinhart, who is second in the NHL with 27 goals overall, has the most shorthanded goals on the year in the league with five.
“Reinhart specifically, he might have the best stick in the league or close to it in terms of getting stick on pucks, turning things over and then his ability to score,” Keefe said. “He’s also very smart positionally and it allows him to utilize his skills to create those turnovers.”
The Devils also like to use their skilled players on the PK with Jack Hughes, Bratt and Nico Hischer.
"We always talk about that," Bratt said. "We don't want to be satisfied with just winning the puck back and clearing it out. If you have a chance to go, you go. Because we know it's hard to transition on the power play and you have that offensive mindset. You may gain that split second that you need to create those offensive scoring chance."