Final Focus
The Devils understand their current situation. They have 58 points through 56 games (28-26-2) and are nine points behind in the Metro Division’s third and final playoff spot and 10 points from the second and last Wild Card spot for the postseason.
The situation is daunting.
And the team that holds the final Metro spot – the New York Islanders – will be at Prudential Center on Thursday. Meaning, it will essentially be a do-or-die contest before the team leaves for a three-week Olympic break.
“You have to look at it with a realistic lens. It hasn’t gone the way we wanted this year, no question,” veteran goalie Jake Allen said. “There’s nothing we can do about that now. Sometimes you need to change your behaviors a little bit to adapt to where we are. That’s the biggest thing. All we can really focus on is one game here. We have three weeks to clear our minds. Today is about your mindset at practice. Tomorrow it’ll be your mindset in the morning and your mindset at night. Between those hours you can do whatever the heck you want to do, but it’s just about trying to bring it. We’ll see where that takes us tomorrow.
“We obviously understand the importance of the game. It starts with our behaviors and our mentality. It’s just tomorrow. We have 30-odd hours to really focus in. Then we can check out for a while, regroup and start fresh.”
The Devils are putting all of their focus on Thursday’s contest. After that they’ll have a few weeks to unplug. Though they’ll need to start gearing back up during that break to be ready to hit the ground running when they return to action on Feb. 25.
“Halfway through that break you have to start getting the wheels kicking again,” Allen said. “You can’t expect to come back here and turn the lights on and go out and do it again, especially with the importance of our schedule. I think halfway through that break you’re going to start getting those wheels in motion, get the mind going, then the legs and hopefully it all comes together.”
While the Devils are not where they had hoped to be heading into the Olympic break, that doesn’t mean hope is lost.
“It’s disappointing. A lot of us have been on teams with high expectations and haven’t met them,” Allen said. “We still believe in this group and where we can get to in the last quarter. But at the same time, it’s coming in with your own individual standards first. That should be the first step, having your own standards and that adheres to the group standards. Somewhere in the middle you’ll find some success in that. The reality is we have a quarter of a season left. One game here and then see what we can do in February and March.”
