BLOG: Devils Using Practice Time to Work on Avoiding Mental Mistakes

FARMERS BRANCH, TX - A common refrain following the team's loss to Nashville on Saturday was that they need to learn to avoid the mental mistakes which have crept into their game as of late.
Monday was a chance for the team to practice and prepare for the second game of this four-game trip Tuesday in Dallas and work on some of these aspects of their game.
"Today was more about how can we be better as a team? Because some of those mistakes do you no good if you just show your team if they're individual, lack of focus type mistakes that I talked about," Devils interim head coach Alain Nasreddine began. "Today was some of the structure things where we're trying to implement and be a little better. There was a big emphasis in our own coverage. There was some mental mistakes last game, but there was also a sloppy play. Those are the things we addressed today."
Damon Severson talked about shoring up things defensively for the club.
"When we get in there, we've just got to be solid. You gotta be prepared for anything on the offensive side of the puck," he said. "With Nashville, they had a lot of guys who roamed around that o-zone."
Severson added that having the practice time today was beneficial for the club as they look to reshape their identity under a new head coach.
"Honestly, you only get so much practice time, so when you get days like today, you've really got to make sure you're sharp and moving the puck well," he stated. "We get out there for about 45, 50 minutes, I think, so it was a solid practice day. You don't get those a whole lot, especially at this point in the season. But, we've got a couple on this trip, so hopefully we can use this to our advantage and get going tomorrow."