Winds of Change | 10 TAKEAWAYS

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."

2.

You could see it in the game on Tuesday night as well. There was a reinvigoration of the players. Yes, the first 10 minutes looked a little too familiar, but overall, the pace and passion with which the team played against Florida - and practiced with on Wednesday, felt like a rejuvenated energy. And with just 20 games left on the regular season and needing to make a final push, they're going to need every bit of that. 

With the changes that came on the heels of a game day, it felt like Wednesday was really the start of the winds of change, with Green running the practice session and setting forth his expectations as a head coach. You could see it in just about every element of the practice. You play the way you practice and this practice had a non-stop pace.

Sam Kasan broke it down perfectly in his post-game column: The energy. Check. The passion. Check. The confidence. Check. The swagger. Check

Read about it all here:Devils Respond to Coaching Change with Improved Effort 

3. 

Not every great story can make it into a final story, which is why I love having my 10 Takeaways to share those that may have fallen by the wayside.

Take for example my chat with Chase Stillman a couple of weeks back. He shared that great story about Simon Nemec and the bat that was flying around his room one night, well I got a little more insight into their friendship and what it was like being roommates.

“He’s a quiet guy, he keeps to himself and his girlfriend was down there with us. She was great. I got to hang out with them both, nice and quiet. He’s, you know, Nemo.

I would always try to fire him up and he would just tell me he gets excited on the inside. I would be like ‘Okay, I don’t get it, I’m just all kinds of different energy.”

Stillman also said he was the one who asked Nemec to room with him in Utica, wanting to have a roommate in his first-year pro, but did add: “The way I looked at it, I knew if Nemo did get called up, I’d have a two-bedroom place. It worked out.”

4.

Oh to be young again and learning the basics in life! Stillman, who is living on his own for the first time, shared some valuable life lessons he’s learned:

“It’s crazy how fast I can make (the apartment) messy when I don’t tidy it up. Whenever you’re done with something, put it away, it will save you a lot of time.”

5.

Can confirm that the Devils’ pre-game soccer group has a new member. Kurtis MacDermid has joined the rather large group of players who take part in pre-game soccer. Pre-game soccer is incredibly popular among the Devils, they've got an extensive crew of players who participate. Off the top of my head, every game players are Ondrej Palat, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Erik Haula, Jesper Bratt, Kevin Bahl, Luke Hughes, Jack Hughes, Brendan Smith, Nico Daws, Simon Nemec, Jonas Siegenthaler, Alexander Holtz, Tyler Toffoli, Nathan Bastian ... I think that's everyone. 

Might have been easier to name the players who don't participate, now that I think about it.

6.

Decision-making is a big part of coaching and Travis Green will be no stranger to that as well. He’s already had to make a big one (we’ll get to that in a moment), but whatever the decisions are, it’s clear that communicating the reasons why, is not something that he will shy away from.

What I really appreciated and what struck me was how open he was in giving even a bit of an insider look into his decision-making process. His response to the question about why Simon Nemec was not going to play against the Panthers, Green spent a full, uninterrupted 1:24 explaining his decision.

And then again on Wednesday, when he was asked to further explain his decision, he continued to go into detail for over a minute:

“Every young player needs to learn things, why their game has dipped, being mentally prepared to play every game. It’s a grind, the NHL is a grind. It’s not like we’ve been playing him 10 to 12 minutes a night, he’s playing against the best players in the world right now, he’s done a fairly good job and I want to make sure that he keeps trending in the right direction. In the last three weeks I felt like he was just trending in the wrong direction and I don’t want him to become a player that by the end of the year he isn’t the player we saw at the beginning of the year, or when he first came up. It’s up to us to kind of manage that part of his progression and part of it is just getting his legs back under him. I thin kwhen he’s skating, when he plays a little quicker it allows him to be better with the puck and if he’s a half a step behind, well now he’s going to be in trouble and he’s going to get pucks in spots where he’s getting pressured and maybe turning them over or not defending quick enough and then you worry about confidence as well. When he first came up, he was feeling great about his game. The one thing players know, they always know how they’re playing deep down. They know when they’re good and when they’re not as good and that was the great thing about our conversation, we both agreed on a lot of the same things.”

7.

There may just be 20 games left in the season, but Green did stress that Nemec will be back in the lineup. 

“I was honest that the last three weeks he had dipped a little bit," Green continued to explain. "We talked about why. There’s a learning curve in the NHL with players, to play for 82 games. There’s a learning part to that too. Getting reset and refocused is not a bad thing. That’s just what we’re working with with him right now. I told him he’s going to get back in, I didn’t say when, but it could be tomorrow. It might be, it might not be, I haven’t made any decisions on the lineup yet (for) tomorrow.”

8.

Adding to that, Simon Nemec did talk on Wednesday about missing Tuesday’s game. And again, when it comes to communication, it appears Green prioritized making sure that Nemec heard it from him first, which doesn’t always happen.

There are times when a player will walk into the locker room on the morning of a game, only to see their name not listed in the lineup for that night. No matter how many times it does happen, as proud athletes, you always want to be in the lineup.

But then there’s a bit more of a sensitivity when it comes to young players starting to learn their way through the league.

There has to be a level of shock you might experience not seeing your name on the lineup on the locker room whiteboard.

That could have happened to Simon Nemec, but Green made sure that wasn’t the case, something Nemec spoke about appreciating.

“I was really happy he told me, first guy, I didn't see it on the board, he told me. It's really good. (...) I'm not happy because I want to play games, but I have some areas I need to improve. I just can work hard on the ice and come back stronger.”

9.

Timo Meier has been on a tear of late, it's been great watching him as his game hits new strides this season. He's got seven points in his last six games (plus a goal taken off the board in San Jose). He's making things happen, whether it's connecting with a teammate or, like on Tuesday night, a full individual power-forward moment, that was described perfectly by NHL.com's Mike Morreale (trust me, I wish I could take credit for this!).  

 And it's bang on:

"Meier split (Florida) defensemen Mikkola and Kulikov like a running back through a defensive line..."

Timo meanwhile, humbly described his goal as just 'going to the net'.

"I just tried to keep it simple and go to the net," he said, "It was bouncing off, I don’t know how many things, but you know I thought we had some life."

That's more than just a 'simple go to the net'. He steamrolled his way to that goal.

10. 

The NHL Trade Deadline is less than 48 hours away, so it's a good time to check in and give a refresher of the comments made by Tom Fitzgerald earlier this week when he was fielding questions from the media. It should come as no surprise that Fitzgerald has said that he is in the market to acquire a goaltender. 

“I am in the market," he said, "Is there the right personnel for the right price? Without mortgaging the future but understanding the short-gain that it’s an important position. I’m not ignoring that. Our goaltending has not been good. Yes, that’s on me to go out and try and upgrade. I wish it was as easy as said and done. I’m trying to do the right thing for the organization in the short window with the big window in my mind.”

And of pending free-agent Tyler Toffoli? Well, he's not shopping him, but as any good GM will do, he'll still listen. 

“I’m not shopping Tyler Toffoli. Tyler and I sat together in LA. We had a great talk. Tyler knows how much I’d like to bring him back. Unfortunately, right now there’s a possible term difference. That doesn’t mean we can’t revisit this past the deadline if he’s still here or in the off-season. The reality is, teams have called on him. What that return looks like, I wouldn’t give away our leading scorer just to gain future assets. Those future assets could help us down the road.”