Devils Must Re-Think “Playoff Palat’s” Role For Do-Or-Die Game 7
When one of his young players commits a costly gaffe, such as a penalty, a turnover, or a missed defensive assignment that leads to a goal against, Devils Head Coach Lindy Ruff often sits the offending player as part of the learning experience.
What happens, though, when the player who may have negatively assisted in turning the tide of this best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series versus the Rangers is a two-time Stanley Cup winner who entered this postseason with 138 career playoff games under his belt?
Apparently nothing.
With Saturday night’s Game 6 at Madison Square Garden tied at 1-1 late in the first period, Devils veteran wing Ondrej Palat was sent to the penalty box not once, but twice, for infractions while in the offensive zone, a cardinal sin. That the Rangers didn’t score on either power play was irrelevant, for the momentum from his and two other infractions over 15 minutes of game action swung in New York’s favor. As Ruff noted in his postgame remarks to the media, “The penalties took our best players away from the game. They had to spend too much time on the bench.”
It took only five more minutes after Palat escaped his second sentence for New York to grab the lead for good, with Palat a puck-watching observer at the net front as Rangers center Mika Zibanejad moved stealthily into the slot to take Chris Kreider’s feed from behind the net. Zibanejad buried his first goal of the series with a wicked shot past Palat and rookie goalie Akira Schmid. Hope Palat got a good picture.
That opened the floodgates to three more unanswered goals, and against Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin, there was no coming back. New York cruised to a 5-2 victory, chasing the previously impenetrable Schmid in the process, to even the series at 3-3 and force a Game 7 on Monday night at Prudential Center.
Center Michael McLeod and defenseman Kevin Bahl, whose puck management errors led to Ranger goals No. 3 and 4, respectively, are experiencing their first postseasons in the NHL. They were too eager to make plays and got burned.
What’s Palat’s excuse for his brain cramps, and why didn’t Ruff demote him to a bottom-six role, never mind making him miss at least one shift? It wasn’t Ruff’s best moment.
After missing out on top free agent target Johnny Gaudreau, who instead signed with Columbus last summer (not the wisest choice in hindsight for the South Jersey native), the Devils pivoted to Palat. The 5-year, $30 million deal is weighted, cash-wise, in the early seasons, since the contract and the 32-year old might not age so gracefully while counting $6 million against the salary cap through the 2026-27 season.
Unfortunately, Year 1 hasn’t gone so smoothly either. Palat suffered a groin injury that required surgery after playing just six games. He returned to action earlier than many expected in January, but his impact was minimal, producing just 8 goals and 15 assists in 49 total games this season. It was the first time he recorded less than 0.5 points per game in a season since his 14-game cup of coffee in 2012-13, the first of his ten seasons in Tampa Bay.
No worries, folks assured. “Playoff Palat” would arrive to help smooth things for the green Devils.
It hasn’t happened. Palat has the worst 5-on-5 Corsi among Devils forwards with the exception of fourth-liners McLeod, Nathan Bastian, and Curtis Lazar.
Worse, his presence on the second line appears to be dragging down Devils All-Star Jack Hughes. Unlike Erik Haula, who cleans up some of the dirty chores down low in the defensive zone and on faceoffs that would otherwise go to Hughes if he were strictly the center on his line, Palat has provided little such support in his nearly 68 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time with Hughes this series.
What is Palat still doing up in that role? You don’t need both him and Haula. Game-planning ways to free up Hughes, his most gifted player, has to be a major priority for Ruff as he prepares for Game 7, where he’ll at least have the last change. I can guarantee this--hamstringing him to Palat again for a do-or-die situation isn’t the recipe for success.
Sure, Palat netted a goal in each of his prior two games, but one was a wide open empty-netter and the other a fluke off a lost faceoff that found him in the slot and was deflected by Rangers defenseman Adam Fox up and over Shesterkin. Puck luck happens.
I will give Palat credit for his willingness to get in front of Shesterkin on Devils power plays, a tactic executed way too inconsistently by the team as a whole in all situations. His “screen assist” on Hughes’ Game 3 goal in the second period that tied the contest at 1-1 might have saved the season, since New Jersey eventually won it in overtime to avoid going into an insurmountable 0-3 hole.
New Jersey was the more dominant team in the next two games and had the lead late in Saturday’s first period. The mistakes they made thereafter are those you just can’t give a team like the Rangers who know what to do when facing elimination.
That Palat was in the middle of so many of them was bitterly disappointing. That they brought zero consequences was baffling.