The Devils had a rare two-day break between games. The club was given Tuesday off and Wednesday the team was on the ice for an even more rare full practice. The practice came at a perfect time as the club needed to fix some parts of its game that have started slip.
"Lately, we've been playing a lot of games with a tough schedule and haven't been able to practice as much," forward Jesper Bratt said. "The last couple games have been going away from us a little bit, our defensive structure. Today's practice was a really good chance to get back into structure and work on the small details."
Those small details were the point of emphasis today.
"Different tracking drills coming into D zone," Bratt said, "side-to-side switches in zone, find your man, find your coverage, know your work. It was a good practice day for us."
Ruff was quite vocal during the practice session. But don't mistake his tone with anger.
"I was animated. I wasn't upset," Ruff clarified to a question. "I was just passionate about the drill, that we do it right. Not upset, just let's do it right, let's do it hard."
That passionate drill? You guessed it, the tracking back into the D zone.
"The checking, back checking, getting back in the zone, the area of the game that we've worked so hard on all year," Ruff said. "That drill has been our go-to drill. This is the first real practice we've had in quite a while. That really is our go-to drill to practice coverage and tracking back and getting into people."
