The Time is Now for Devils Ondrej Palat
Devils forward Ondrej Palat brought Stanley Cup experience, skill, and toughness when he moved from Tampa to NJ. Now, the Devils are in a playoff race and his role will be invaluable.
Ondrej Palat won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2020 and 2021. He made a third trip to the Final before falling to Colorado in 2022.
In those three runs, the skilled winger recorded 52 points in 74 games, including 11 goals and 21 points in 23 games last season. That is called rising to the occasion.
When the New Jersey Devils added Palat in July, his skill and talent were of course part of the move. But his experience and toughness undoubtedly played an even bigger role.
“He’s been through the war,” Devils Coach Lindy Ruff said on Thursday. “He knows what it’s like. He suffered some pain in Tampa when they lost a playoff series. They learned from that and almost won three straight.”
This experience is always valuable for any team. However, for a Devils team that has missed the playoffs in nine of their last 10 seasons, it wasn’t always necessary.
Now, sitting as the second seed in the Metropolitan Division and among the top teams across the NHL, the playoffs are inching closer and closer. This is the time that the Palat’s in the league prove more valuable than just their skill.
“The history of him is the bigger the games, the better he’s been” Ruff said. “We’re starting to see that. You need that from your veteran guys, the guys that have been in the trenches. This last segment of games for us, we want to continue to get better and you have to lean on players like that.”
Palat is showing exactly that. After taking a stick to the mouth in the second period, he left the game but returned and scored a huge goal in the third to tie the game. Despite the injury, the 31-year-old finished the game with one goal and two assists and spearheaded a Devils comeback.
And in hockey-player fashion, he brushed off the injury like it was a stubbed toe.
“I’m good,” he said Thursday. “Three teeth got chipped out and a couple stitches. Nothing crazy.”
That is crazy.
When you look at the stats of a player like Palat, it can be easy to think that he is not among the toughest guys out there. But the goal-scorer has proven over and over that he will never back away from a challenge and is always willing to go to the dirty and tough areas in order to score a goal or help his team win.
“You can tell that little things aren’t going to keep him out of the lineup,” Ruff said. “He even tried to get ahead of schedule on the injury he had this year. He’s a consummate pro.”
All of that, plus his talent were on display against Toronto and over the past four games. Palat now has five points in that time after tallying zero in six straight.
So he has the skill, he has the toughness, and he is one of the most experienced players in the NHL in terms of playing games that matter. This is why the Devils added him in the summer and right now is when his value becomes evident.
Expect to see Palat only getting better as the season winds down and that big ol’ silver chalice comes into view…