Poulter Joins Devils for Practice | NOTEBOOK

The Devils are practicing at Prudential Center on Wednesday afternoon in the midst of playing four games in six days. The team recalled goaltender Isaac Poulter from Utica of the American Hockey League and re-assigned Akria Schmid. 

Stay tuned to the notebook for the latest info, updates, interviews, videos and more from the practice session!

Practice Details

Defenseman John Marino missed another practice due to his illness. He also did not play in Tuesday night’s game at Washington.

"He's still sick," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "We'll evaluate later today and see where he's at tomorrow."

Goaltender Nico Daws also did not practice. He’s played five straight games for New Jersey, including four games in six nights. So, he’s getting a well-deserved break.

"He needs it. He’s played a lot of hockey for us, a lot of games," Ruff said. "In between days here, trying to get him some rest."

Vitek Vanecek (lower-body) is feeling better but still not ready to play.

Goalie Shuffle

The Devils are making some moves with their goaltenders. Poulter was recalled today with Akria Schmid going down to Utica of the American Hockey League. The Devils have home games Thursday and then back-to-back Saturday and Sunday.

The club wants Schmid to play for the Comets on Friday and then they’ll decide how to divvy up the weekend games amongst their triplet of goalies.

“We have Akira going down to get a game in,” Ruff said. “See how that game goes. Then make a decision on the weekend games.”

Poulter-geist

Goaltender Isaac Poulter was still fresh off the excitement of signing his first NHL contract when he received a call from Utica head coach Kevin Dineen Tuesday.

The bench boss asked what his plans were for the day. He had a list that included cleaning his apartment, doing laundry and getting groceries. Unfortunately for his chores, none of that would get done.

“He said forget that because you’re going (to New Jersey),” Poulter said inside the Devils locker room following Wednesday’s practice.

“The fact that I signed my first NHL contract was still settling in,” he said of his past week. “Then the phone rang (for the call up). I was shocked again and excited. It’s been an awesome last couple of days.”

Poulter had a brief taste of NHL life during training camp. Though he was one of the early cuts. So, in some ways Wednesday’s practice was his first real taste of the NHL.

“I’m definitely sweating a little bit. It’s faster than the AHL,” he said. “I felt pretty good. A lot of shots. I got to feel a lot of pucks.”

Sitting next to Poulter in the locker room is Nico Daws, his good friend from their time in Utica together. In fact, Poulter called him this morning to tell him the good news.

“I just woke up and I got a call at 9:30 a.m. from (Poulter) asking me where to park,” Daws laughed. “I was like, so you’re called up, and why are you at the rink so early?”

Daws added: “It’s great having a guy that I’ve grown to become really good friends with, to have him here, someone I’m comfortable with, that I can ask those random questions that I think of throughout the day. It’s great having him here.”

Though Poulter never got to finish his chores, he’s happy how things turned out.

“Little disappointed I didn’t do the laundry but more excited to be here,” he laughed.

Poulter's Bet

The Devils just signed Isaac Poulter to a two-way contract last week. It's been quite the journey to get here. 

“I got cut from teams,” he recounted, “it was always just seeing all my friends playing on like the double-A or triple-A and I wasn’t. I realized how much I wanted to be there. It all kind of just started from when I was younger, just getting cut from a lot of teams. And then once I started figuring out how much hard work I had to put in, I got cut from our provincial team that do a tournament every year, that was another point where I was like ‘Wow, I feel like I’m right there with these other guys”, there was so much work I put in. And I think it's just every step along the way, it hasn't always been the easiest, but, you know, just trying to keep working as hard as I can, and try to do all the right things to make sure that it works out.”

And work out it has.