Devils Notebook
Devils Notebook: Special Teams; Mercer’s Return; Notes & Quotes
Dawson Mercer returns fresh off his contract extension, Devils work on special teams.

NEWARK — Although it’s been a tough training camp for the New Jersey Devils already, there was a little extra buzz in the air on Saturday.
Dawson Mercer returned to the Prudential Center fresh off his new three-year contract he signed on Friday.
Head coach Sheldon Keefe was excited to see Mercer in attendance, getting his first glimpse of the 22-year-old as his head coach.
“Yeah, it’s great to have him in the building, for sure,” Keefe said. “Obviously, we’ll work to try to get him up to speed, because there are a lot of new things that have been happening here. But, great to see him off the ice and chat with him a little bit on the ice too. You can tell right away he’s a very good player, clearly an NHL player. Usually, those guys stand out pretty quickly, which, despite it being his first day with our group, it looked like he hadn’t missed the beat. So that’s good to see.”
On returning, you could see the relief in Mercer’s demeanor.
“Obviously, you see online everything’s started. Then to finally get here in person, see all the guys and staff and just get my feet back on nice with the group, it felt great,” Mercer explained. “It’s a quick turnaround now, within the week before we head over to Europe, and I’m excited to finally make it back.”
According to the Devils’ head coach, Mercer won’t play in Sunday’s preseason matchup with the New York Islanders. The Devils forward needs a little extra time to get up to speed with what’s been going on during his absence.
Others who Keefe named who may not play are Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, and Simon Nemec.
“Because of [Nemec’s] situation, and then with Jack [Hughes] and Timo Meier, those guys coming off of their offseason surgeries and such, we’re going to give them more time,” Keefe explained. “They’re doing perfectly fine. I just like the idea of giving them tomorrow as an off day, which will happen for those who don’t play tomorrow. It will be a full off day, and then sort of come back and regroup, starting on Monday, and then kind of take it from there before we get to more games.”
Erik Haula — who has yet to participate in training camp — remained absent. He’s still battling an illness and is considered day-to-day.
Saturday was primarily a special teams practice. Here’s how the power play units shaped up.
Devils PP1
Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Dougie Hamilton
Devils PP2
Tomas Tatar, Paul Cotter, Stefan Noesen, Ondrej Palat, and Simon Nemec
As far as the penalty kill, it rotated quite often. However, one notable unit who was deployed is as follows:
Devils PK Unit
Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Dougie Hamilton, and Brenden Dillon
That’s certainly an interesting mix with three plus defensive skaters with Hamilton being the puck mover.
Asked if Keefe had to come in and change up how the special teams systems worked.
“I think if you watch the league enough, I would say that about 80% of what teams do are virtually identical across the league,” Keefe concluded. “And then you get some nuances that are different, that are player specific, and in what some of those rinks are. So the foundation, which is really what you’re going through on a day like today, on day one, is stuff that’s pretty familiar to them, and then you just start building it out from there.”
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