Green Sets Tone with First Devils Practice | NOTEBOOK

Interim head coach Travis Green hosted his first practice with the Devils this afternoon. 

Although he had some time to set the tone at morning skate on Tuesday, Travis Green held his first official practice on Wednesday where he could begin to implement who he is and what he expects as a head coach. Green had the Devils moving their feet, nearly non-stop, for a full 35-minute session.

"It was intense and hard-working," Dawson Mercer said, "We were like moving our feet, always. There wasn't much stoppage. I like that in my game, so you all use it in different ways. We're a fast team, so that's our advantage, that's what we've got to use."

"There's first effort, second effort and third effort. At this time of year, marginal first efforts usually aren't going to cut it," Green said, post-practice. "You've got to have that third effort and that's part of practice."

Check out the Devils Notebook for the latest info, updates, interviews, videos and more from the practice session!

Review and Execute

After Tuesday's game, Green shared what he saw from the first 10 minutes of the game when the Devils fell into a 2-0 hole to Florida. 

"That first 10 minutes of the game, I didn’t like our passing," he said, "I think our execution, our guys looked and didn’t have a lot of poise with the puck, any time you don’t pass the puck well or receive the puck well, it’s really hard to gain a lot of traction in your game."

"We had a good morning review of the game last night, talked about some of the things we did like in the game, some of the things we needed to improve on that we'd work on in practice today."

So that's exactly what the focus was. Looking at those inner details and stepping onto the ice with those particular skills in focus. 

"We wanted to make sure that we concentrated on making sure we skated fasted, pass on the tape. That would be like any practice to be honest."

"One thing we really wanted to work on today was just passing really, putting passes on the tape, execution and making sure our pace was high enough on a daily basis," Green added.

Staying Ready

Simon Nemec sat out his first game since being called up to New Jersey on Tuesday night and while it's never easy to be pulled out of the lineup, it is all part of the process.

For Nemec, he certainly wants to play every game, but has an understanding as well, about why. 

"It's up and down, it's always hard for a young D to jump to the middle of the season and play well every game. Some games were really good, some games were bad," he shared.

"I never played like every second day, it's pretty hard. Sometimes it's good to just rest a little bit and be ready for more games."

Travis Green has talked a lot about the importance of being a communicator with his team, a quality he really values. Nemec said that he did appreciate having a conversation with Green before finding out about his scratch any other way. 

"I was really happy he told me, first guy, I didn't see it on the board, he told me," Nemec said, "It's really good. It was his decision. I'm not happy because I want to play games, but I have some areas I need to improve. I just can work hard on the ice and come back stronger."

"It's sometimes good to watch and learn, I really like to play games, but I need to wait a little bit."