from Rich Chere of NJ Advance Media,

Rich Chere: What are your thoughts heading into training camp?

“I’m excited about the start and the potential I think we’ve got with this group. I thought we finished the season real strongly last year. I think we only lost one of our last 10 or 11 games in regulation. We’re going to bring back a big part of that group that hopefully can hit the ground running. And I think the additions that we’ve made really address some of the key issues I felt kept us out of the playoffs last year.”

Is this team better heading into camp than it was a year ago?

“Yes. I think we’re deeper. With some of the people we’ve got in here and some of the people we brought in, I’m not concerned about scoring. We’ve dealt with some distractions here over the last 2 or 3 years with Zach (Parise) leaving, with Kovy (Ilya Kovalchuk) leaving and, not that Marty retiring is a distraction, but there has been some things that normal teams don’t deal with. I think we’ve come out the other side of that and everyone is excited to start.”

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