NEWARK -- No player denied it. The Devils were far too soft for their liking during the 2016-17 season.

Entering training camp this fall, a common theme mentioned by players and coaches was to shake any of that soft play and return to the hard, difficult style the Devils saw in the first year under coach John Hynes in 2015-16.

"You spend time in the summer talking to guys from other teams, and I don't think there's a single player in this room or another room that would have said we were one of the tougher teams to play against," forward Kyle Palmieri said. "And that should piss guys off."

Palmieri made it clear that reputation should be more than enough motivation for the Devils to swing the narrative in 2017-18.

"When you have that and are not successful, it's kind of, in no better words, (expletive) on top of (expletive)," Palmieri continued. "So I think it's something that has to light a fire under all of us, and we're going to go out there and prove that we're way better than what we did last year and make sure teams know we're going out to win hockey games. If it takes pissing them off then that's what we're going to do."

So how do the Devils go about changing how they play on the ice? That work started as soon as the offseason began, and defenseman Ben Lovejoy said it involves the team clearing that mental hurdle.

"It's a mindset and it's personnel. We were far too soft last year. We were not hard to play against," Lovejoy said. "Not so much the physical game, but the winning battles, the mentality. We weren't strong along the boards, we didn't have that fight every game that we need, and I really think that's such an important part of the game."

That aspect of the Devils was one of the reasons Lovejoy signed with the team last summer. After signing, Lovejoy recalled his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins, saying the Devils always made things difficult -- even when there was a glaring divide in talent levels.

Hynes, his staff and GM Ray Shero met with the full group of players on the opening day of training camp, and Hynes reiterated the need to establish their culture in the preseason.

Even with the talent additions the Devils made throughout the offseason, Hynes said the players need to be on the same page.

"It's about establishing the foundations of how we want to play, the identity of how we want to play, getting our work ethic up, our conditioning up, our battle level up," Hynes said. "All those things have to be put in place after a long summer. It's not about talent right now. It's about establishing how we want to play and getting our systems in place, our identity in place, and making sure we have all those things in order at a high, high level when the season starts."

Chris Ryan may be reached at cryan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisRyan_NJ. Find NJ.com Devils on Facebook.