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The New Jersey Devils opened their preseason in style with a dramatic 5-4 win over the New York Rangers.

While there are certainly things to clean up, the Devils were the better team for the better part of 60 minutes and eventually got the result they deserved.

10 takeaways:

1. Adam Henrique touched on this during an intermission interview and it's something I picked up on as well: the Devils were really attacking the Rangers through the neutral zone. They were carrying the puck up with speed, which forced the defensemen to back off. Devils forwards consistently gained the line with possession of the puck, and really didn't dump it in all that often. One play I noticed the Devils run a few times is the puck carrier would carry it into the offensive zone along the wall, and then hit a trailing forward in the high slot for a one-timer. They generated a few good chances that way.

2. Speaking of Henrique, I thought he was the best player on the ice last night. He was a threat almost every shift, and he scored two beautiful goals. The first one, of course, was a deflection while fighting off a man in front, and the game-winner late came on an Ilya Kovalchuk-esque shot. He told Devils writers he worked on his shot a lot this summer, and that was quite evident early.

3. Henrique's line dominated possession all night. Their shot attempt for/against totals:

Henrique 17/6 = +11
Ryder 15/7 = +8
Boucher 13/6 = +7

It's only preseason, but that line's performance was certainly encouraging. If they can play like that, it allows Pete DeBoer to run out three scoring lines with the other two being Patrik Elias' line and, of course, Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Jaromir Jagr.

4. Sticking with the Elias line, I thought they were pretty good. At times they were hemmed in their own zone, but they created quite a few chances and played well in the cycle game. Martin Havlat's speed was a real plus, too.

5. DeBoer stressed that he wanted to play faster this year, and it showed against the Rangers. They were trying to push the pace and were able to do so for most of the night. In particular I thought Henrique, Boucher, who was exceptional, and Havlat did that very well. If Boucher can put together a few more performances like that, he'll force his way onto the team.

6. I thought Adam Larsson and Eric Gelinas played a real good game together. They were smart in their own zone, in good positioning for the most part and weren't afraid to lay the body. Both of them made good outlet passes throughout the night, and they joined the rush to help create offense at times. And, obviously, offensively we saw that big shot from Gelinas again. Man, can he wire it.

7. Damon Severson was really impressive last night. He showed off his fluid skating ability, made good outlet passes and just oozed confidence with the puck. If he made a mistake, he didn't get flustered and continued to move on. Severson logged over 23 minutes of ice in the win.

8. It wasn't all roses and rainbows last night, though. Mike Komisarek was not very good. The Devils actually had more shot attempts for than against when he was on the ice, but he made some poor defensive blunders that led to Grade A chances. He really can't afford to overcommit like he did last night, because he doesn't have the speed to get back if he's caught.

9. Keeping with the tryout theme, I felt Tomas Kaberle, Jordin Tootoo and, to a lesser extent, Ruslan Fedotenko played well. It's probably fair to say they all earned at least another preseason game.

10. In net, Scott Clemmensen and Keith Kinkaid were both mediocre. Clemmensen's first goal against was definitely one he should have had, and the second one wasn't great, either. It was a tough play for him to get across and make the save, but he got a piece of it and it's a save you'd like to see him make after the first goal he allowed. As for Kinkaid, he was good early but failed to make a couple saves late. I think there's room for improvement from both guys.

Next up is a game against the Flyers on Thursday.

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