PRE-GAME MEDIA AVAIL RECAP
NEWARK, NJ – Several hours prior to this afternoon’s game between the Devils and Penguins, head coach Sheldon Keefe met with the media. He was first asked about the injury status of two players who were missing from yesterday’s practice: Connor Brown and Dougie Hamilton.
“Connor’s status is unchanged,” said Keefe. “He’s just gonna need some more time for things to resolve here. We’re not expecting it to be too long, but return is not imminent at this point. Dougie has a minor injury. Gonna be probably a minimum of a week for him, and then from that point it’ll just be a matter of how he’s feeling in terms of when he’ll come back. So we’ll press on without them from here.”
With Hamilton out, the team now has three right-hand defensemen out of the lineup in Brett Pesce, Hamilton and Johnathan Kovacevic. Lines on Friday were as follows and likely to be the same to start today:
Noesen – Hughes – Bratt
Meier – Hischier – Mercer
Palat – Glass – Gritsyuk
Cotter – Lammikko – Glendening
Siegnethaler – Nemec
Dillon – Hughes
Cholowski – White
Notable in the above is Luke Hughes playing on his weak side at right D.
“I think anytime you have a guy playing on the offside, there are certainly challenges that come with that,” Keefe noted. “Mainly off the breakout and in the neutral zone with the puck—it can be a little bit more challenging. The angles are different. You can get pressure to your backhand side a little bit more. It can create challenges. But there are opportunities offensively that can help you there. You can quickly gain the middle of the ice and have your stick to the inside along the offensive blue line. You can attack to your forehand side a lot better and smoother. So that’s some of the stuff we’d like to see. But really it’s just a matter of necessity right now.”
Keefe has Luke playing with Dillon, who’s been a strong and steady veteran presence for the team with all the injuries around him.
“He’s been tremendous. I mean, stepping up at this time, not just in his play and the extra responsibility that he has, but just helping those other guys along,” Keefe began. “Obviously (assistant coach) Brad Shaw is still new to us and still getting to know our team and our staff and all that, but he comments frequently about things that I may miss further down the bench and just how much Dilly talks on the bench, how much he talks to his partner and talks to the young defensemen and sort of talks them through situations and helps them move on quickly from mistakes. That’s invaluable for any young player, any teammate really, that is trying to grow their game and trying to find their way through a difficult time for our team right now.”
Keefe also talked about Colton White, who draws into the lineup. Keefe coached him in junior with the Soo Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League.
“He’s just a more mature version of who I’ve always known. I coached him as a 16-year-old kid coming into junior hockey. And at that time, you really appreciated his demeanor. He’s a very genuine person, works hard, is a good teammate, and has a good skill set—a broad skill set. I don’t think he’s ever had one thing that he’s really latched onto. He’s good at a lot of things. A very solid defenseman—he can skate, move the puck, but also smart enough to defend. And again, that’s what we need from him here today.”
Depth will be key to get the team out of this tough stretch of injuries, particularly on the right side of defense.
“Circumstances have forced us to kind of dig into the depth here. We made the decision earlier this week to have Seamus Casey get to Utica and get playing consistently without disruption. We think that’s really important to him, regardless of what we’re going through, just for his own development because he hasn’t played very much. We want some stability there for him. So you call on a veteran guy like Whitey, and it was good to have him yesterday. We’re gonna need some good minutes from him today.”
SPECIAL TEAMS A FOCAL POINT
The Penguins have the top power play in the NHL at 35.9% and while the Devils penalty kill has been good at 87.2% and 6th in the League, they know it’ll be a tough task today.
“It’s a big focal point today,” stated Keefe. “We gotta stay out of the box and limit our penalties—limit their opportunities to go to work during the power play. Obviously they’re really feeling it right now. They have a lot of confidence in it. The players are all feeling good. They’re moving it around well. We were talking about it in there, and I think there are over 4,000 points on that first unit power play, and that’s with one player that’s just kinda getting going in his career. So it’s really amongst four of them. But yeah, we gotta do a job on the kill for sure. We’re gonna have some kills, we’re gonna have to find our way through, but minimize their opportunities because it’s really driving the team right now.”
Keefe declined to name a starter in goal.
