Right now I think we’ve been humbled

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For the better part of the last week , the Edmonton Oilers and the New Jersey Devils have represented the NHL as ambassadors in Europe. Now, however, it’s time to go to work.Both clubs begin their respective 2018-19 seasons on Saturday in a matchup at the Scandinavium in Gothenberg, Sweden, as part of the NHL Global Series.It is a unique opportunity for players of both teams.Article continues below ...“I feel pretty grateful to get to experience this,” veteran Devils center Travis Zajac told the team’s website. “It’s not every team that gets to come out here and play in front of different fans. They appreciate the game just as much as the fans back in North America.“It’s a different atmosphere, it’s a great feel for the guys to get out here and help grow the game.” For the Swedish players on each team, Saturday’s game will have even more meaning.“It’s going to be a big day for me, a lot of feelings and emotions,” Oilers defenseman Oscar Klefbom said on the team’s website. “To play in front of friends and family will almost be a surreal feeling, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.”Devils forward Marcus Johansson told reporters, “It’s a really special feeling, and it’s a little weird, too, walking around here in Sweden with all my teammates. But there’s very few guys that get to do this and I’m really, really excited for it.”Jesper Bratt , the Devils’ second-year Swedish forward, will miss an opportunity to play in front of his family and friends because he suffered a fractured jaw in practice on Thursday. He will be out two to three weeks.Bratt will be replaced in the Devils’ lineup Saturday by Jean-Sebastien Dea, a 24-year-old winger who was claimed off waivers from the Pittsburgh Penguins near the end of training camp.In addition, the Devils signed veteran forward Drew Stafford to a one-year contract on Friday after he attended camp on a PTO.The Devils will also be missing their No. 1 goaltender, Cory Schneider, who is still recovering from offseason hip surgery. Though Schneider is practicing with the team, he did not appear in any preseason games, and Keith Kinkaid will start Saturday.It’s not a new role for Kinkaid, who filled in during the second half of last season when Schneider was injured. Kinkaid was 26-10-3 in a career-high 41 games a year ago and helped lead the Devils to the team’s first playoff appearance in six seasons.Kinkaid will be opposed in goal by Edmonton’s Cam Talbot, whose subpar season mirrored that of his team in 2017-18 when the Oilers followed a 103-point campaign the year before with a 78-point effort.“I know what I am capable of and this team knows what I am capable of,” Talbot said to nhl.com during training camp. “Most of the time, we go as I go. I understand that.”Of course, the engines of both teams really are up front where Connor McDavid drives the Oilers and Taylor Hall does likewise for the Devils.McDavid won the last two Art Ross Trophies as the league’s leading scorer and was the Hart Trophy winner as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2016-17. Last year, he posted career highs of 41 goals and 108 points.Hall won the Hart Trophy last season when the former Oilers winger established career highs with 39 goals and 93 points with New Jersey.“I’m really excited for the games to count now; to have practices with a legitimate goal in mind, to start well, is really good for our mindset as a group ,” Hall said on the team’s web site. The New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins each lug a three-game losing streak into their Metropolitan Division matchup Monday at PPG Paints Arena, but the demeanor of each club is vastly different.The Devils (5-5-1) felt as if they turned a corner in a good way Saturday despite a 3-0 loss to the New York Islanders, while Pittsburgh (6-3-3) was left reeling after a 5-0 loss the same night against Toronto.New Jersey coach John Hynes talked about there being steps to getting out of a funk, and he thinks his team has taken a big one.Article continues below ...“Lots of times when you come out of it your play has to be better first,” he said. “Lots of times you don’t come out of these with a win; you come out of it by playing better and playing better and playing better.“If we can build on our work ethic and how we played (Saturday), then we’re going to put ourselves in situations to win games.”Before the Islanders game, the Devils lost two games by a combined 12-6. New Jersey goaltender Keith Kinkaid noticed a difference Saturday, describing that game as “a little setback” when the team “ran into a hot goalie.”“There’s plenty of season left,” Kinkaid said. “We’re just going through a little spell. Everything’s a learning curve. We have a young team. We’ve just got to keep sticking with it.”Winger Taylor Hall, the defending Hart Trophy winner, thought the Devils were more competitive and better defensively.“It seems like for the most part we have a grasp for how we need to play in our own end right now,” Hall said. “Comparing our game (Saturday) to the last couple, there was a lot of improvement in a lot of areas. It’s a good building-block game for how we need to play going forward.”The Penguins, meanwhile, spent Sunday trying to simply remind themselves of what those building blocks are.“We’ve got to try to reinforce the details and the work ethic associated with winning, and that was part of the practice (Sunday) , was trying to make sure that we get back to basics and that we focus on the process and the details associated with winning — and with our team it starts with skating,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said.The Penguins were riding high after a 4-0 road trip through Canada, but the three-game losing streak (0-2-1) has immediately followed.“Right now we’re down, and we have to … find ourselves a little bit,” winger Patric Hornqvist said.After being outskated and outworked Saturday by the Maple Leafs, there was plenty of soul-searching.Defenseman Kris Letang said the Penguins were “flat” and that “there was no emotion.”Sullivan, rarely critical of his club, said the past week has taken a toll.“This league has a funny way of humbling you. Right now I think we’ve been humbled,” he said.Pittsburgh winger Matt Cullen, the oldest player in the NHL, has been around plenty long enough to know that even just a month into the season, a lull without a correction can lead to things going sideways.“We have to dig down and find a way to turn things around,” he said. “I don’t have any question that we will, but we don’t have any time to waste.”