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New Jersey Devils: Training Camp Thoughts

September 23, 2016, 12:19 PM ET [19 Comments]
Todd Cordell
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The New Jersey Devils hit the ice for the first time today as the one-ice portion of training camp has finally begun.

While a couple players are absent (Kyle Palmieri and Cory Schneider) due to World Cup duties for the most part the Devils have the entire roster at their disposal.

Here are the line combinations they opened up with.



I'm glad to see Damon Severson is starting out alongside Andy Greene. I don't really think they have anyone on the roster other than Severson who could handle a big spike in minutes and take Adam Larsson's spot. I've said this numerous times but I believe Severson should play with Greene at evens - they've worked well together in the past - and he should also get consistent power play minutes.

I think Lovejoy is the best fit to take Larsson's heavy PK workload as he is very strong on the PK and that will prevent too much being placed on Severson's plate.

John Moore and Ben Lovejoy makes a lot of sense to me as a pairing. Moore likes to skate and move the puck but can be a defensive liability at times. Lovejoy is a pretty steady and reliable defensive-minded guy but he doesn't offer anything offensively. I think they'll compliment each other well.

I think the Devils were smart to move Jon Merrill to his off-side, which allows Yohann Auvitu to play his natural position. He's the real wild card on the back end, and the Devils don't really know what they have in him, so it's nice that he's being given a fair shot to show what he can do. He has enough to adjust to (North American style, smaller ice surface, etc) as it is.

Up front I don't really have a lot of thoughts. I'm not sure I love Devante Smith-Pelly on the top line - his production doesn't warrant it and I'm not sure he can keep up - but he could just be a fill-in until Palmieri gets back. That said, Palmieri played very well with Travis Zajac last season so they could elect to keep that duo in tact.

It's only the first day on the ice but the coaching staff has had months to think about possible line combinations so I very much doubt they're blindly throwing players together here. They'll try different things throughout camp, obviously, but the staff wouldn't put a group together if they weren't interested in seeing how well it will work out.

It'll be fun to see how many units stick together when the games start early next week.

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