Devils Practice on Eve of Home Opener | NOTEBOOK

It's the eve of the Devils home opener at Prudential Center and after a day on Tuesday of working on the finer tuned skills of the game, the Devils come back together for a full practice.

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

Opening the Season (Again)

Although the Devils already have two wins in two games secured under their belts, returning to North America from Prague to play in the home opener at Prudential Center to open up their season at home. On Thursday night, the Devils host the Toronto Maple Leafs to open up their home schedule in New Jersey.

"It’s a little further away, where we started,” Nico Hischier said. “It’s good to get going tomorrow here, in our own barn against a big team. It will be a fun game and we expect New Jersey fans will be there and loud. We should all be pumped up for it.”

"We can’t wait, the home opener is a big part the season," Dawson Mercer said. "We’re looking to get off to a good start. Overall, just to play at home again, it’s been a while since we’ve played at The Rock in front of all the fans for a game. We’re definitely excited for it.”

For head coach Sheldon Keefe, he looks at this home opener, with Prague in the rearview mirror as almost a second start to the year.

"It does actually," Keefe said. "I never said this to the players or anything, but for myself, I almost looked at Prague as an extension of the preseason. It just so happened that the points mattered and there’s added importance to it because of that, but really it’s an 80-game NHL schedule for us now. We’re going into this routine pretty quickly here."

Quickly because the Devils are readying for a schedule in October of 11 games in 21 days, starting tomorrow against the Maple Leafs.

In the Center

At the end of practice as players gather around center ice for the group stretch, sometimes someone very specific gets the honor of leading the stretch in the middle of the circle. In Prague, it was Seamus Casey, on the eve of making his NHL debut, who took to the center.

On Wednesday, the center sat barren until cheers from the players and stick taps from players filled the practice rink. Everyone was looking at their head coach Sheldon Keefe. They wanted him to lead the stretch.

Keefe will be coaching against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night. The only other NHL team he has worked for and was in the Leafs system with their minor league team for nearly a decade.

"That was a first for me,” Keefe said through a big grin. “A first for me. The guys asked me to jump on in there. We had some fun with it. It was good.”

"We all know, to get that win would be huge," Hischier said acknowledging his head coach. "Everybody has this little extra motivation in themselves, for sure, home opener, we know he was coaching that team for a while so, we definitely should be pumped up for that game."

(Mostly) Staying the Same

With the roster officially cut down to 23 men after the allowance of an expanded roster in Prague, head coach Sheldon Keefe kept much the same at practice as was iced during the opening two games of the season.

The only difference on Wednesday was Kurtis MacDermid dressed in a black jersey along with the other defensemen, skating as the seventh D-man.

Notably, unlike Tuesday, defensemen Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce did not take part in practice. Yesterday, the two defensemen joined their fellow D-Union members for the skills practice.

While working special teams, the first unit of Dougie Hamilton, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt remained the same, while the second unit had one slight change. Ondrej Palat worked as a penalty killer, while Dawson Mercer took a spot on the second unit. In the season opener in Prague, Palat played on the second unit and when he was unavailable to play in the second game, Mercer took over that man-advantage spot.

Dillon Invested in Learning About Teammates

Brenden Dillon was brought in to the New Jersey Devils locker room for a reason. Not just for his on-ice contributions but because he carries a big presence off the ice. At 33-years-old, Dillon is one of the elder statesmen of the room and he's also one of the more facinating. As a kid, Dillon was surrounded by the Portuguese language and began to understand the importance of, well, understanding those around him. It's helped him figure out how to navigate the different personalities of an NHL locker room where players come from all over the world, are thrust together and expected to go to battle with one another.

It's not always easy, but it's worth investing in.

“The best teams that I've been on haven't necessarily been the most talented, but it’s been where everyone's felt comfortable, where everyone is a big part of the team and when you feel that way, or you at least feel that other people are trying to relate to you, it goes a long way.”

Read more from Dillon in our feature story: Dillon Invests in Learning Language of Locker Room