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Devils rookie defenseman Eric Gelinas (22) can become a very good player if he develops his defensive game, Hall of Fame blueliner Mark Howe believes.

(Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports)

NEWARK – Part of the Devils' optional practice Friday included five forwards dressed in red practice jerseys at one of end of the AmeriHealth Pavilion ice doing drills with goalie Cory Schneider while rookie Eric Gelinas was at the other end working on his game with assistant coaches Scott Stevens and Mike Foligno.

Gelinas was wearing a defenseman's black practice jersey as he was schooled on tactics such as making a safe play with the puck when transitioning from defense to offense.

With this playing out, it appears the possible switcheroo from defense to left wing for the 6-foot-4, 205-pound Canadian is off for the time being. The plan seems to have changed late this week because veteran blueliner Bryce Salvador sat out Thursday night’s overtime loss to Phoenix with a lower body injury and the captain will be unavailable again for Saturday night’s road game against the Islanders.

When and if Gelinas goes to forward for the first time since he was a teen playing Midgets hockey – and it still could happen temporarily - no one is more qualified to weigh in than a member of hockey’s first family who played both positions on his way to becoming a Hall of Famer.

Mark Howe, director of pro scouting for the Detroit Red Wings and son of Gordie, began his pro career playing six seasons as a left wing in the WHA, then switched to defense for his 16 NHL seasons with the Hartford, Philadelphia and Detroit.

Howe's take on this Devils’ experiment, which was in play for two practices this week?

"Gelinas, with his speed and his size, I think he could be a factor at left wing," Howe told NJ.com in a phone interview the other day. "I do understand that from a coaching aspect."

That swig of optimism was followed with a bigger dose of realism.

"Defense and playing wing, they're two separate things," added Howe, who lives a short drive from Newark in Jackson. "When you're playing defense, you have the play in front of you. You generally position yourself where you have nine guys in front of you. You know where everybody is on the ice. You can read situations.

"But when you're playing forward, you don't necessarily have that luxury. It’s more of when the defenseman has the puck you have to read where your hole is, where you have to get to. When I played forward, my job was to get in an opening so that the defenseman could give me the puck and then you try to create stuff.

"If Gelinas never played left wing before, it’s a huge adjustment."

How this will play out going forward for the short-term is a mystery because Devils coach Pete DeBoer simply appears to have been looking for a way to keep playing Gelinas before Salvador's injury. Gelinas, 22, still has a ways to go learning the defensive parts of his job, but already offers tremendous offensive ability and a booming slapshot for power plays.

In the Devils' last eight games, Gelinas was a healthy scratch four times, took regular shifts as one of three defensive pairs twice and used twice as a seventh defenseman so that he could play on power plays.

Long-term, the Devils still see Gelinas as a blueliner, coach Pete DeBoer has said.

Howe agrees that's probably for the best, but like most NHL people feel, he says it takes almost every young defenseman with a lot of raw talent a good while to develop the defensive aspect of his game.

"It took me close to three years before I really learned how to play defense," Howe said.

Gelinas can improve, Howe believes, by studying Salvador, who may be past his prime at 38 but still is the Devils' best top defensive defenseman.

"If I could ever teach Gelinas something it would be learn how to play defense like Bryce Salvador,” Howe said. “If I'm him, I'd watch Bryce Salvador every day. Watch how he plays. A lot of what I learned was from Eddie Van Impe (in Philadelphia). He was a stay-at-home guy like Salvador. He played right and was nasty. He taught me how to play defense the way it should be played.

"So you learn how to play real sound defensively, but now your skills and your mobility are that much better. It would be like taking a Bryce Salvador and mixing in a Gelinas, and you become a pretty good hockey player."

Howe has seen Gelinas in about a dozen or so NHL games this season plus several AHL games the two previous seasons. In early season games, he was very impressed.

"The last few games I've seen him, I think he's struggled defensively," Howe said. “Every once in awhile he gets caught flat-footed and he's watching the puck and not paying attention to what he needs to do, taking care of his own business within the system itself. And there's the odd turnover at the blue line.

"But everybody makes mistakes. The only way you get better is you learn not to make those mistakes again, or you minimize. And then you become better."

One game that stood out for Howe was when the Devils played in Pittsburgh on Dec 13.

“Evgeni Malkin schooled him twice in the first period,” Howe said, referring to the Penguins’ superstar center. “I was there and watched it. I’ve noticed a big difference in Gelinas’ play after that. The thing is you shouldn’t feel bad because Malkin does that to a lot of players. He’s a world-class player.

"My read on it is Gelinas’ confidence has suffered a little bit. The only way I knew how to get that back was in practice. With the Olympic break and every team having a day off a week, there’s just not a lot of practice time this year and that’s the difficult thing."

Howe feels for Gelinas because he sees a lot of offensive ability.

"No matter how good you are offensively, you have to be good defensively,” Howe said. “The only guy that might have been the exception is (Hall of Fame defenseman) Paul Coffey. Coffey had his problems, but he produced so much offense that he counteracted that.

“For me, when I’d get into struggles, I used to focus primarily on my defense. I had the ability to make things happen at the other end, but I just made defense a focus. It was something I worked on every day at practice. Once you’re really sound defensively, it actually makes the offense that much easier."

For Gelinas, it’s all about being dedicated to improving, Howe predicted.

"I think it was (Hall of Fame coach) Scotty Bowman who said 15 percent of players have the ability to score goals and create offense, and 100 percent of the players have the ability to work hard defensively,” Howe said. “I’d rather have a defenseman who scores 40 points and is rock solid defensively than a guy who scores 60 or 65 and I have no idea what he’s going to do in his own end of the rink. I guarantee any coach in hockey would say the same thing."