Lineup Swaps
As noted above, Brown will make his season debut tonight after missing the opening eight games with a lower-body injury. He skated all last week and is returning tonight as planned.
“It's always challenging when you're injured and trying to get back, so a bit of a mental battle there,” Brown admitted. “You want to be playing with the guys, especially early in the season. But we got a really great medical staff, and so they took care of me, and I feel great now, and so I'm ready to return.
“(Returning) almost to the day, right on time. It felt good and no surprises. So, like I said, I was under great care here, so really lucky.”
Head coach Sheldon Keefe is also grateful to have Brown back in the lineup.
“Obviously, he's a very good player, a versatile guy, does a lot of things for us, five-on-five and special teams,” he said of Brown. “But he's a leadership presence as well. He has energy about him, both in his personality and his leadership, and then also how he plays the game as well. He sets a good example.”
With Lombardi sitting for the first time this year, Keefe had a message to him.
“It's just communicating to him that he's done a very good job, and we've communicated with him on a daily basis to that end, that he has done a really nice job here,” Keefe said. “It's a lot of new things for him, new league, new teammates, new city, the travel, the five games in eight days that we just played, like all these kind of things. And I think he's handled it really well, so it's more a reflection of the numbers and guys coming in.
“It's not a bad thing for a young player to take a night off and get a little different perspective and all those sorts of things. But it's just, we've had a plan for him since the day he was traded here. I think we've executed that plan, and he's trusted that process, and he's performed very well. And this is just another step in that process towards him becoming that full-time NHLer that he wants to be, and we believe that he is.”
Bird's Eye View
While sitting out is hard for any player, it has given Brown a unique perspective on the team early on this season.
“Sometimes you gain a bit of a different perspective when you watch than when you're in,” he said. “And from what I see is the team looks great. I mean, I think the team, obviously, we're 4-4 right now. Maybe the results aren't exactly where we anticipate them, but it's a long year, and we're continuing to build, and we're evolving our details and stuff like that. But when you just look at the skill and the pace and the speed and the quickness of this team, the level of talent around here, it's at the top of the league. So, it's fun to kind of get my feet wet and get going with this group.”
Avalanche Brewing
The Devils are hosting a Stanley Cup contender in Colorado. The Devils know what’s coming and are prepared for it.
“It's not going to be pretty out there tonight,” captain Nico Hischier said. “It's going to be a high-intense match, and obviously we got to be super aware who's on the ice over there. They're obviously a high-caliber offensive team, and we got to be very good in our own net, own zone and try to give them as less as possible.”
As always, the Devils will be focused on their own game. And that means cleaning up their defensive zone after a tough outing in Washington on Saturday.
“I think our own zone. We got to switch our mentality and, I think, a 0-0 for us is good,” he said. “As long, keep it at zero and trust that we're going to somehow score a goal. And when we get scored on, let's not lose the process and then try to do more, try to score more goals, because then I feel we sometimes open up too much, and then we get a second and a third, and that hurt us a lot. And it's not been last game. I think it's been a bunch of games, and that's where we got to get to, having that strong [door slams] mentality that we can also win a game 2-1 or 1-0 even. I know it's maybe not as fun, but those are two points there as well, so we got to get to that.”
