“Oh no.”

Mackenzie Blackwood knew he had it at the Devils’ team hotel in Vancouver. He’s certain of it. But on the long chartered flight back to New Jersey following an eight-day road trip through the tundra of Western Canada, his iPad is no where to be found.

At that point, the Devils goalie could only chalk it up as a loss — one of the perils of packing for the road.

“I’m a very forgetful person, so the list could go on,” Blackwood said. "One game in the minors I forgot to bring my contacts to the rink, so I had to turn around and go home and get my contacts. Couldn’t play the game without them. But we’re working on that. It’s a work in progress. It’s come a long way.”

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Blackwood has developed a lengthy check list while packing to make sure he has all of the personal and hockey gear needed for any trip away from home, whether it be two nights or 10, but something still occasionally slips through the cracks.

And Blackwood is far from alone in that category. With the amount of hockey gear, dress clothes and other things needed on the road, packing mistakes can pop up.

In terms of clothes to wear away from the rink, most players try to pack light. If they forget an extra shirt or pair of pants, they can buy something on the road in a pinch. A lot rotate between two suits to wear to and from games and practices. If they forget a tie, they can borrow one from a teammate or zip their coats all the way up to hide the mistake.

By the time players reach the NHL, they’ve usually got their suit routine down to a science. But many have horror stories from experience in the minors or junior hockey.

“We were in Manitoba, Cody Hodgson had just turned pro and joined us for the Western Conference Finals, and we had to go to Houston, so it was hot in May,” goalie Cory Schneider said, recalling an incident from 2009. “And somebody asked if we were allowed to wear shorts on the trip, meaning once we got to Houston on a day off. The coach said ‘Sure, of course.' It was his first trip with us, so he shows up to the airport the next day with shorts and dress socks and dress shoes and a collared shirt. He said, ‘What, I thought we were allowed to wear shorts?’”

Sami Vatanen has his own — much shorter — check list of things needed for a trip. If he’s got his phone, wallet and passport, he can make due with anything else he might forget.

That’s a basic rule of thumb for any player. But, yeah, those items can be an issue, too.

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When the Devils pulled up at Newark Liberty International Airport in March of 2019, Blake Coleman realized his mistake. His passport was still at home. Considering the team was about to head on that season’s Western Canada trip, it was a pretty vital packing omission.

Thankfully, Coleman’s then fiancee and now wife saved the day by running it to the airport, allowing the team to get on its way without further issue.

"She’s the MVP,” Coleman laughed.

In the NHL, hockey gear is usually the least of players’ packing worries, since they can throw everything in their bag at their locker and easily see if anything is still sitting in the stall. And team equipment managers also do a sweep of the room to make sure everything is accounted for.

That wasn’t the case for players when they were younger.

Defenseman Damon Severson recalled one particularly odd day back in high school, when his junior team, the Kelowna Rockets, practiced at a different rink than usual. Following a day of classes, he and his teammates bolted from school to get to the rink with about 15 minutes to spare before hitting the ice. He got dressed, put on one skate, then reached in his bag for the other.

No dice.

"I had a friend run back to our usual rink and get it, and by that time, practice was halfway done,” Severson said. "I had to use one of the assistant coach’s skates. So I had one of mine on and one of his on."

No players had any stories about any gear issues in the NHL. Vatanen said it’s pretty easy to make sure all that stuff is ready to go.

So you know where this is going.

Minutes after talking about packing his gear, Vatanen shouldered his bag and began to walk to the back of the Devils’ locker room to get ready to board the team bus to the airport ahead of a trip to Pittsburgh.

“Unbelievable,” he said, stopping in his tracks after looking back at his stall. Vatanen dropped his bag, wheeled back, grabbed his gloves and continued on his way.

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