Haula Misses Practice in Seattle | NOTEBOOK

The Devils returned to the ice for a practice session in Seattle on Sunday afternoon, looking to work their way out of a difficult stretch. With one last stop on the Western portion of the season-long five-game trip, the Devils hope to turn their fortunes around tomorrow, starting with Seattle.

"This road trip obviously hasn’t gone as planned,” Curtis Lazar said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it (now). Just focus on the next day ahead. But every time we have a setback, we end up with a loss, you have to learn from it. There are some valuable lessons in there and these make you better in the long run. It’s a long season, every good team goes through adversity at some point, we have the guys in the room that want to band together and hold ourselves to that level that we all hold ourselves to."

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

The Practice Details

The Devils were without forward Erik Haula today at practice, with head coach Sheldon Keefe confirming that Haula will ‘miss some time’ due to an ankle injury. Haula, Keefe said, was getting an MRI in Seattle on Sunday and did not give any concrete timeline.

In his third-line center spot, Keefe used forward Justin Dowling and emphasized that it wasn’t simply because of Haula missing, but that it’s a spot where he feels Dowlings abilities can be best utilized.

“It wasn’t a simple as just putting him in there,” Keefe said. “Dowls play has garnered us to at least have a discussion as a staff and we wanted to bring him on this road trip to keep him with the group and available with us, and now obviously for good reason. So, I think the Lazar line has done a real nice job, I thought last game, maybe two games in a row now, they’ve been very good for me, so just put Dowling in that spot and see if they can keep going, because I like a lot from that line yesterday.

“A lot of good things from that line, as Paul Cotter’s maybe best game in a long time, if not the whole season for me, from start to finish," Keefe continued. "Not just because of the goal, but just his overall play. And Cotts has played well with Dowling, so we’ll see how that goes.”

Reset, Refresh

Amidst this tough stretch, it's easy to feel the weight of a losing record but it's also important to dig into the memory bank of the success you've already had and channel how to get back to that.

"Mentally, it’s that fine line," Lazar added. "We’re all competitors, we all want to win, but you compound those bad thoughts, you get upset, you get worked up, but it’s not going to do you any good. Every day is a new start, a new opportunity, we’re trying to grow."

"When stretches like this happen, you obviously don’t want to let it linger and stop it as soon as you can, that’s what we’re trying to do here tomorrow," Dawson Mercer said. "But we put ourselves in a good spot throughout the year and hopefully this is something we can get closed up pretty quick.”

It's all about getting back to what they know has made them successful and it wasn't too long ago that they played what Keefe considered probably their best game of the year.

"Our last game against the Rangers I thought was as good a game as we’ve played maybe all year and just went into the break at such a high note," Keefe said, "and it wasn’t just a one-off, we’d been doing that for quite a bit, but I thought (the Rangers game) put a real exclamation point on it. And then you come back and you’ve been kind of chasing it since. You’re not scoring, now you’re kind of questioning different things and you’re searching for this or that and you kind of lose your way as a team. That’s how quickly it happens, so the perspective of the fact that we know we’ve done it, we know we’re capable of, we believe in our group doesn’t have me panicking or anything."