It's down to the wire of the NHL 2023-24 regular season. Only 20 games remain on the regular season schedule for the Devils. It's sometimes hard to remember each year how fast a season can fly by. Blink and you're already in early March.
Even though it's just 20 games, there's lots to be done at the same time.
“We want to go out there and right this ship," Curtis Lazar said on the heels of Travis Green taking over as interim head coach and preparing for a second game under Green's leadership.
This is a club with very proud athletes who want to win and want to see things turn around. They'll have 20 games to get it done and it all started today with the first practice under interim head coach Travis Green.
1.
There’s trying to impress a new coach, and then maybe trying with a little too much vim and vigour.
When Travis Green started his first practice today, the opening drill was a 5-on-5 drill and the team went all-out on the opening rep. It was actually something I noticed watching from the stands, that the Devils practice kicked off with a major intensity, from 0-to-100.
Turns out, that wasn’t exactly the plan and Green actually had to stop his team and remind them of where they were in practice.
“Believe it or not, when I brought them in, I told them ‘You're not going to hear me say this very often, but you guys skated too hard on that drill. It was supposed to be a warm-up drill.’”
There was definitely a hard-nosed approach to just about everything in practice today, bringing to mind a real ‘you play how you practice’ vibe. It was non-stop moving their feet for 35 minutes, with an occasional quick water break.
"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."