Here We Go Again | 10 TAKEAWAYS

Well, my friends, it's that time of year. The official kick-off to the 2022-23 NHL season and that means it's time to revive 10 Takeaways, presented by Ticketmaster. These weekly articles are some of my favorites as I get to take you behind the scenes, share fun stories and of course, occasionally get to the nitty-gritty hockey talk.
There's been a backlog of stories I've wanted to get to as training camp has opened and closed since the last we met. So without further ado, here is the first edition of 10 Takeaways, presented by Ticketmaster, of the 2022-23 Devils season.

2.

Part of Media Day includes shooting the videos that go up on the board when a player scores. I cannot name names, but I asked a player if they had attended that video station yet and he looked at me, laughed, and said 'oh no, I so rarely score goals, they don't need me'.
I told him he was now destined to score the first goal of the season and sadly have no video of himself on the board.
If he does, I'll reveal his name because it will be too perfect.

3.

There are times when you can see it, whether it be in body language or reading between the lines of interviews and circumstance, the dejection, or the doubt. But when it has come to Alexander Holtz this training camp, I experienced none of that. He has been fully confident all the way through, even when the shots he was taking were being stopped, going wide, just not finding the back of the net. As a high draft pick and a player who has scored goals his whole life, you couldn't blame Holtz for getting down. But he never once did. He came into this camp, from my perspective, with a sense of purpose and conviction that he was going to make the opening night roster.
After the final preseason game in Boston, he said he believed he had shown enough to make the roster. That's a kid with conviction, putting himself out there. That's not to say he believes his game is perfect - it's not - but the improvements he's made, the things he's worked on, I commend him for that.

It was great to see yesterday that his name appeared on the 23-man roster to start the season.

4.

Having the locker room open to the media once again is a very nice return to normalcy from years ago. It also provides for some of the funnier moments. We've known that Yegor Sharangovich likes to get up to no good. He's the prankster of the group. And while the locker room was closed, we still caught glimpses of it, being back in the room has taken the antics to another level during training camp. I am fairly certain by the second week of the season I'll be able to do a single 10 Takeaways on his pranks alone. He likes to get in on the fun, particularly in the middle of interviews.
The first this season was while I was talking with Nico Hischier off-camera. Sharangovich came up to us and listened intently, to which he followed up with 'Nico, my English is better than yours' (it's not!).
Nico and I jokingly agreed that if Yegor thinks his English is better than Nico's I should be interviewing him with the same regularity that I speak with the team captain.
Yegor laughed and immediately retracted his comment.
It's these types of little interactions that build different types of relationships and can expand the stories reporters are able to write. I'm sure we'll have more Sharangovich pranks to report.

5.

Like this one:

6.

When Ondrej Palat signed his contract with the team this summer, in his opening press conference he talked about how
his young daughter, Adelka, who is almost four, had never seen snow before.
Palat lived in Tampa Bay for 10 years during the hockey season, with definitely no snow there, and in Czechia during the summer. This is going to be a new experience for her... and the current weather in New Jersey is already becoming a bit of a learning lesson for the youngster.
Palat told me on Sunday that this current New Jersey weather is the coldest she's been in, but she hasn't quite connected the dots just quite yet. He says she looks at the pool in their backyard and keeps asking to go swimming… he's had to try to explain to her it is not pool weather, a little too cold...! It's all a learning process!

7.

I need to get to the bottom of this.
Walking into the locker room last week, Damon Severson and Erik Haula were looking intently at Jonas Siegenthaler. They let it slip, Jonas likes to dole out words of wisdom to his teammates. Now, I'm pretty sure they're not your typical words of wisdom because they all started cracking up when talking about it, but there's definitely something there.
"A couple of guys asked me, what's the wisdom today," Siegenthaler said with a smile.

He wouldn't share it in front of the camera, but I am going to make it my mission to at least have him impart some wisdom to me before the end of the year!

8.

A favorite activity of mine? Watching Sergei Brylin battle against the players he's coaching, because he's going to try to, and oftentimes successfully, outwork whoever he's on the ice with. It's clearly just in his DNA.
He also takes no mercy on the goaltenders.

9.

This was genuinely one of the funniest moments. It's only 1:15, but this went on for much longer. The tortilla challenge between Mercer and Nathan Bastian became a thing of myths and legends. Word spread quickly their challenge was next level and slowly the doorway began to fill up of players watching and laughing in hysterics watching the two of them go at it.

10.

Have you downloaded the new New Jersey Devils/Prudential Center app yet? If you want to talk about a lot of hard work, I sit in the office area around those who have been working tirelessly to put together this app, and what they have created is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Make sure you've downloaded
it so that you're fully prepared for the 2022-23 Devils season!