Sunday at the Rink | NOTEBOOK

The Devils are practicing the RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House inside Prudential Center on Sunday afternoon. It's the club's first practice since the holiday break.

Stay tuned to the notebook for the latest info, updates, interviews, videos and more from the practice session!

Practice Details

The Devils announced prior to practice that forward Angus Crookshank was re-assigned to Utica of the American Hockey League.

Cody Glass missed the entire practice session.

"Same situation that he had before the break," Keefe said. "He’s been playing through something. When we can minimize his time on the ice, it’s helpful. He’s played very well, and it hasn’t impacted his game necessarily. A lot of that is because of how the training staff has managed him between games."

Talkin' Bout Practice

For the first time since training camp, the Devils will have the opportunity to practice on back-to-back days. The first coming Sunday, and the focus of the practice session was on individual tight space skill-based execution.

“It’s very important that you take advantage when you get to practice,” forward Timo Meier said. “During a season where we had a lot of games and had some guys come back from injury, it’s the first time we were able to practice with everybody together. It’s important today. A lot of energy. Keep the energy high and really take advantage and work on our game.”

Many of the drills were focused on scoring goals, an area the club has struggled with of late.

“A skill session, you go in those drills with purpose. We haven’t scored a lot of goals. It’s important that we dial it in on that,” Meier said. “Every shot has to be with purpose. Every rep, at the same time you have to have fun with it. But know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to dial in and work on it.”

“Today we just wanted to make sure we’re focused on the scoring element and getting a lot of touches to help up our execution level,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said.

The skills session is probably more important for some of the bottom-6 forwards, who have limited minutes during games, and thus limited touches of the puck.

“You could play 15 minutes a night and have less than a minute of puck possession time,” winger Connor Brown said. “It’s very important to get out there, get your touches so you’re nice and polished when the game starts.”

“Some of our top offensive people, maybe they’ll get some extra touches on the power play or in general. They’ll get more scoring opportunities so you’re in those spots,” Keefe said. “But for some guys if you’re not practicing often and just playing games, you might actually shoot a puck two or three times a week. Put that in perspective, if a puck lands on your stick at a time when you want to execute and score a goal and you haven’t been in that spot often.”

That’s why days like today are so important. It allows the top players to get into a groove with reps and it allows other players the opportunity to touch the puck and get a feel for working in tight.

“A day like today, coming off three days off and a time where we’re trying to finish better with the chances that we have,” Keefe said, “we need to get the guys as many opportunities to shoot the puck into the net as possible today.”

“This sport is so feel based,” Brown said. “It’s one thing to say shoot it high. But when you can rep it out and get that feel, it becomes a little more automated when the game starts. Receiving passes, stick handling, moving it to the backhand, that feel is there. That’s another reason like a practice like that is so important.”

Talkin' Bout Execution

One underestimated aspect of practice is its ability to act as a building block not only for systems, but can actually help on the mental side of the game.

“In those practices you can gain confidence,” Meier said. “If you do things the right way you can build confidence as a team and as an individual. It’s rare to have these kinds of days where we have practice time. Really use it as a team to work hard and gain confidence.”

Everything builds up to that moment during the game on the ice. But it’s the work done in between that leads to success.

“Execution,” Meier said of the key. “If you go through drills and execute well, if you’re skating and working hard it makes you feel good. You’re doing the right things as a team and working toward a goal and getting our game back in place. Every rep is a small step to getting better. That’s the way we need to approach it. Small things, keep improving and it will lead up to bigger things.”

“But the execution of it is what’s paramount for us,” Keefe said. “Focus level, we have to value every single rep. It’s a chance to get better.”

He Said It:

Keefe on the team's scoring issues: "It’s been a tough stretch. When you see a guy like (Jesper) Bratt get two goals, you get 5-on-5 goals, a power-play goal as a team, you hope that’s a positive trend that we’re going to start to finish here. But you can’t sit back and expect it’s going to snap back. We know we’ve generated more scoring chances and opportunities to score than we have actual goals. But the actual goals are the ones that matter the most. We have to find a way to get these over the line. We’re working on the mental side of it with the guys. Showing clips, getting reps in practice, reinforcing the habits and details inside of finishing, where to shoot, when to shoot, traffic, all those details is where we have to do the job as coaches."

He Said It 2:

Brown on having fun at practice during skill session games: "It’s fun. You connect with all the fun things in the game, scoring goals, smiling, unplugging little. It’s much needed for this group. I thought we made good on it."