PRE-GAME RECAP
NEWARK, NJ - The Devils did not hold a morning skate with the 3:30 p.m. ET puck drop. They did practice yesterday. Head coach Sheldon Keefe confirmed that the lineup will be the same from Thursday's 3-1 win against Florida.
Palat - Hughes - Bratt
Meier - Hischier - Mercer
Gritsyuk - Glass - Brown
Cotter - Glendening - Halonen
Hughes - Pesce
Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Dillon - Nemec
Jake Allen in net.
Here's more of Keefe's commentary with the media...
How do you handle a player like McDavid?
You don't change your scheme or you plan. You still have to play to your idenity. At the end of the day, we believe - and I think most coaches would say - the structure you have and how you want to play is to manage the game no matter who you're playing against, no matter what the situation is. It just so happens that we're playing a player of the caliber, obviously he's not the only one, you just have to be that much better at it. Your executiuon, your commitment level to it, the discipline, the patience. It has to be that much better because they have the ability to turn the game in an instant.
On the importance of today's game...
The caliber of opponent gets your attention. For us it's to keep building our game. We believe we can and we should win every single time we put our gear on. That's just the reality of it. We don't care who the opponent is. That's our attitude. But we've got to go out and execute and play and compete and do all those things. That's what we talk about, that's what we focus on. That's not going to change.
We should win every time we put our gear on.
On if he wants to see his defensemen getting shots on goal...
You always want to get more pucks through to the net. That's been a challenge for us. We've talked about that, finding lanes, our forwards presenting targets and that sort of stuff. That can give our D the ability to shoot around blocks. That's part of it, getting it to the net. It's more getting involved in the rush, giving us an out-numbered situations that way, activating, converging in the offensive zone. I would say it's more stuff off the puck that I would like to see from our D. But when it's their turn and they get it at the top with forwards competing and battling at the net, you want to see some pucks arrive there. That's what Nemec did a good job of and credit to Timo. He got himself in a good spot and got a great tip on it.
