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The New Jersey Devils open training camp today, and they have as much competition for roster spots as they've had in a long time.

Some thoughts as camp begins and an important preseason approaches:

- The player I've been asked most about of late is Damon Severson. The 20-year-old defenseman - coming off a season where he tallied 79 points in 78 reg. season/playoff games with Kelowna - will reportedly be given a fair shot to make the team out of camp this year. While that may be true, with six defensemen on one-way deals and Jon Merrill (two-way deal) an essential lock to make the team, there's not really much room.

I think Pete Harrold's 7th defenseman spot is the only one really up for grabs - Adam Larsson and Eric Gelinas would have to clear waivers (not happening) to be sent down - and Severson winning that spot really wouldn't do much for anyone. He needs to take a regular shift and play in every game to develop properly, and if he's the 7th defenseman that won't be happening. I think it's best for him, barring someone being moved, to start the season in Albany and be recalled when there's an injury and he can play every day.

- Speaking of that 7th defenseman spot, Pete Harrold is more than adequate for that role. That said, he'll have plenty of competition with Tomas Kaberle, Mike Komisarek and even Renat Mamashev in camp trying to take that spot. Kaberle and Komisarek's best days are behind them, but maybe they have a little good hockey left in the tank. It certainly doesn't hurt to find out. My money is on Harrold keeping his job, though.

- Travis Zajac does a lot of things well. Scoring from a distance is not one of those things. I was playing around with War-On-Ice.com's Hextally graphs, and noticed that if Zajac isn't, well, just outside the paint, he's probably not going to score.



It's a good thing he has a couple good players to distribute the puck to in Mike Cammalleri and Jaromir Jagr.

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