Star Power | 10 TAKEAWAYS

It's been a whirlwind of a week. Two massive wins won in two completely different ways. A 1-0 win against the Avalanche and the 7-1 win drubbing of the Blue Jackets, the Devils are passing all kinds of tests early in the season. In Vancouver yesterday, Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau called the Devils the scariest team in hockey right now and it had nothing to do with Halloween.
"They're playing well enough right now to scare every other team in the league. When you face them, that's the way you've got to think."
None of it is by accident. Where the Devils are now is strictly hard work, dedication, and as Erika Haula has said 'everyone pulling on the rope (...) and taking pride in our game."
Presented by Ticketmaster, 10 Takeaways has a look back on the last week for the New Jersey Devils.

2.

I love a good one-word answer sometimes.
That's what we got from Nico Hischier when a reporter in Vancouver asked him what the Devils are doing when they're playing their best.
"Speed."
That's it. That's the tweet, as the kids say.

3.

Good luck to our very own Meghan Duggan!
Running her first New York City Marathon on Nov. 6!

4.

Late last week I hosted a Q&A with some fans and Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Jonas Siegenthaler.
Two answers to questions really stuck out to me.
The first was asking Jesper about the run that he's been on to start the season and how he's reached this point from being a sixth-round draft selection.
In part of his answer, he wasn't afraid to say it, he never believed he should have been a sixth-rounder and what he's done since then is to prove that.
Safe to say, he's made a case for himself.

5.

The other was the echoed answers of both Hischier and Bratt when I asked them what their best NHL memory has been so far.
Both said making the playoffs in their first NHL season. But it was more the explanation, than the actual event that I felt was significant. They both talked about how much fun it was, but also how it has fueled them ever since as individuals and as a team to get back to that point because of how they felt in that first season. It of course can feel obvious that it should be their favorite memory, but the drive it built in them once the run concluded might be the most important part of that experience (my words, not theirs).

6.

I hope you didn't miss the national anthem on Sunday before the Devils/Blue Jackets game. On the night the team was honoring Ken Daneyko, his son Shane sang the national anthem and blew the crowd out of the water. But it should come as no surprise, the younger Daneyko is actually a graduate of the Berklee School of Music.

Shane is also - by a long shot - the best singer in the family. His dad, our Dano, has an affinity for singing on our team busses, so I can speak to it from personal experience! Dano keeps us all entertained on our busses and his singing… it's never a full song, it's always just two lines to a verse, over and over again!
He's a beauty.

7.

Congrats to Simon Nemec! He scored his first goal for the Utica Comets this past week, his first professional goal in North America!

8.

Is there anything better than a Yegor Sharangovich goal celebration?

Doesn't even break from his straight face.

9.

Make that two weeks in a row the Devils have a player in the NHL's Three Stars of the Week. First, it was Mackenzie Blackwood, named the Third Star on Oct. 24, and yesterday the NHL named Jesper Bratt as the Second Star of the Week. Not a bad run, but I loved what Jesper Bratt said when I asked him about his personal success to receive the accolade.
"It's been a good week for the whole team, obviously, my own performance has helped the team, which is my goal all the time...(this week was) a step in the right direction and now it's a new week and hopefully we can do something similar next week."

10.

It wasn't just last week that has been incredible for Bratt, it's the entire beginning of the season he's put together, points in every game played to start the year, he leads the team with 15 points in nine games.
His streak puts him in the company of some extremely rarified Swedish company. Only three Swedish-born players have had longer season-opening runs than Bratt is currently riding and it's some pretty extraordinary company. Mats Sundin had an incredible 30-game point straight in 1992-93, Henrik Zetterberg had a 17-game streak in 2007-08 and Daniel Alfredsson had a 10-game streak in 2002-03.