Jump Right Back
With three days off, the team wants to continue how they were playing before the break and find their game as quickly as possible.
“The greatest challenge for us is just to get back to the level we were at with our team,” Keefe said pre-game. “We were playing really well. Playing well like that, maybe not the most ideal time to have a break and disrupt that rhythm a little bit. But we’re just going to be looking to and hoping to get right back to it and not miss a beat.”
“We emphasized that a lot this morning with Keefe,” Brett Pesce said about bringing energy to tonight’s game. “We know the opponent we’re up against, and they’re going to come hard, and we’re going to have to match that, and even one up it right off the bat.
“Coming off a break, keep it short,” Pesce continued about short shifts. “Go as hard as you can until you find a rhythm and a groove. Hopefully we’ll come out of the gates flying.”
Building Momentum
Following tonight’s game at home, the Devils head down to North Carolina to face the Hurricanes tomorrow. After that, the road trip continues out west with stops in Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Seattle. Winning tonight is a way to bring positive momentum into the longest road trip of the season.
“It builds momentum for the whole trip,” Pesce says about a win tonight. “Ultimately you come out, you play well against these guys, you get some more confidence, and just take that into the west coast trip.”
This back-to-back series with the Hurricanes is also important when it comes to the standings. Currently, New Jersey is six points ahead of Carolina; however, the Devils have played three more games.
“Standing wise too, look who we’re playing against,” Captain Nico Hischier explained. “I think those two games are really big for us. We know we going to be competing against them in the standings throughout the rest of the year, and we’ve played them twice. So I think those games are really important for us and I think everybody understands that here too. So we look forward to those.”
Facing the Forecheck
A part of the Hurricanes game is their heavy forecheck and Hischier discussed how to beat it pre-game:
“Breakouts are definitely a key point. They’re dumping a lot of pucks, they’re heavy on the forecheck. If you can slow them down, if we can break out fast, that’s kind of when we can beat them.”
-Catherine Bogart, NJD.TV
