Light Week Ahead, Practice Resumes for Devils | NOTEBOOK

The schedule is light for the New Jersey Devils this week with just two games.
With a game Tuesday night at Prudential Center against the Chicago Blackhawks and the Islanders on Friday night, the Devils have extra practice time to work with this week.
Stay tuned to the Devils Notebook for the latest from practice which begins at 11 a.m.!

Practice Deets:

The Devils practice used the following workflow…

Injury Updates:

Goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood practiced once again with the team. He rejoined the group last Friday.
"Progressing. Every practice feeling better," head coach Lindy Ruff said of Blackwood. "We just keep moving him along. We'll see after today's workout what it brought, how he's feeling. The better he feels, we'll ramp it up."
Blackwood has been out of the lineup since suffering an MCL sprain Nov. 3 at Edmonton.
Ruff had no update on forward Nathan Bastian, other than to say that he continues to be "out indefinitely" with an upper-body injury from a hit against Washington Nov. 27.
Forward Ondrej Palat is still on Injured Reserve with a lower-body injury while goaltender Jonathan Bernier is on Long-Term Injured Reserve with a hip injury.

Light Load:

The Devils have a light load this week with just two games on the slate. It's a rarity in the NHL, though the Devils have earned it after playing three games in four nights and eight games in 14 days last month.
"We went through a heavy schedule. When you break it down, we're really trying to freshen our team up," Ruff said. "We went through a tough stretch, a lot of games in a few days."
The club has three practices scheduled this week, and a chance to not only work on details, but gain some much-needed rest.
"We looked at Monday's practice, trying to be real high energy but keep it as short as possible," Ruff said. "We'll see what (Tuesday) looks like. (Tuesday) will be some type of skills day or special teams day."
The Devils held organized practice for 30 minutes before breaking off into personal, individualized work. Each player did specific drills for their specific needs. With the shorter team practice session, players had more time to work on their individual skills.
"We get time to practice on some small things," forward Jesper Bratt said, "have a little longer practices and really going into detail and structure on how we need to play, and how we get better."

Win is a Win:

The Devils are coming off of a 3-2 victory in Philadelphia last Saturday evening. Despite the win, the Devils really struggled to find their game.
New Jersey, which had typically registered over 30 shots a game in contests, was held to season-low 18 total and a season-low four in the first period. But the team still managed to pull off a victory.
"I don't think we earned that win but we'll take two points for sure. We've lost some games we should have won," captain Nico Hischier said. "That's just how it goes sometimes. It definitely wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough with our forecheck. It wasn't good enough with our battles. We got away with one for sure. We have to bring our battle level back and be more detailed."
Even if the Devils weren't happy with their overall performance, a win is still a win.
"It's a good thing to win. That's the most important (thing) in this league," Bratt said. "It's hard to win. So, we're happy about that. We walked away with two points even though we were playing our C Game. At the same time, it brings a lot of excitement and will of this team of wanting to get better."
And for the Devils, the most important thing - after winning - is turning the page.
"What we've done all year long is focus on our next opponent and not spend much time with the win, the loss, whatever it was," Ruff said. "Day off yesterday, we've moved on. We're onto Chicago. We talked about some areas of the game where we need to be better, create pressure and play our game. That game is behind us. We're focusing on Chicago and get ready for them."

Quote 'Em:

"Just do it." -Nico Hischier on how the team can play better at the start of games.

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