MORNING SKATE RECAP
NEWARK, NJ - The Devils held an optional morning skate at the Prudential Center before facing the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. The players that took part in the skate were forwards Jesper Bratt, Curtis Lazar, Kurtis MacDermid, Tomas Tatar and Nathan Bastian, defensemen Jonas Siegenthaler and Brett Pesce and goalie Jake Allen.
Goalie Jacob Markstrom will start for the Devils against the Rangers.
New York will start Igor Shesterkin in net. Rangers coach Peter Laviolette also noted that Arthur Kaliyev will make his Rangers debut and Matt Rempe will be in the lineup for New York.
Past Success
The Devils have dominated the opening two games of the season against the Rangers, outscoring the Blueshirts by a count of 10-1. Part of the reason for the club’s success has been fast starts.
“We’re skating from the beginning on,” defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler said. “We’re on our forechecking, putting them under pressure. Every team struggles if you do that. We have to come out tonight with the same mentality, do our thing and play our game.”
But past success does not predict future success.
“That’s gone well for us, but we can’t be thinking too much about what’s happened in the past, good or bad, whether it’s the Rangers game or how our road trip went,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We just have to focus on putting together a good 60 minutes.”
Rivalry on Notice
The Devils returned home from a 10-day, four-game west coast swing through California and Seattle. And with the long day of travel, returning Tuesday, and time change, in many ways the contest at Madison Square Garden is part of the road trip.
“We treated yesterday and today as an extension of that Western road trip,” Keefe said. “You don’t really have the time to recover. It’s a long day of travel coming back and the time change back. You practice and right into a game here today. We’re starting a stretch of six games in 11 days. That’s the reality of the league.”
With such a demanding travel schedule, it may benefit the Devils that they’ll be facing their biggest rival to finish the road swing.
“You have to get over these mental hurdles,” Keefe said, “but certainly when you have these rivalry games on your schedule, it helps to get your attention and lock in a little bit easier.
“When you’re playing a rival it gets your attention, that should help.”
“These games aren’t hard to get up for. We all get up for the Battle of the Hudson,” forward Curtis Lazar said. “We’ve got the Rangers here, so we’re looking forward to it.”
Clean Up
The Devils defensive game set an NHL record for allowing 20 or less shots in seven straight games. The club’s D play has slipped since coming out of the Holiday break, and Keefe noted some areas that need improvement.
“Coming back into our own zone,” he said. “There were too many things coming at our net too quickly. I thought we did a better job for the most part of limiting some odd-man situations (against Seattle). There were a couple we’d like to have back. There are some situations where we have numbers back and we have to do a better job of not letting it get to our net.
“We’ll have to tidy that up. It’s going to be an important part of the game tonight.”
