Expensive Devils Demotion Keys Win Over Caps
In the summer of 2022, the Devils had salary cap space to burn. General Manager Tom Fitzgerald zeroed in on Calgary’s All-Star forward Johnny Gaudreau, a New Jersey native, in free agency. Fitzgerald thought he was closing in on a deal, but Columbus swooped in and snatched the 40-goal scorer away with a 7-year, $68.25 million contract offer.
That Gaudreau’s life was tragically cut short on August 29 when he was killed by a drunk driver while biking in Soth Jersey is by no means the point of this story. Such a horrid turn is unthinkable.
However, Fitzgerald’s pivot two years ago should haunt him in a more ordinary pro sports way. A day after the Gaudreau/Blue Jackets pairing was leaked, the Devils made the regrettable decision to sign 31-year old wing Ondrej Palat to a five-year deal at an inflated $6 million AAV.
At the time, it may have been understood that the contract wouldn’t age well, but Palat had been a top six forward on the two-time Stanley Cup Champion Lightning, so his pedigree that featured big-game achievements was theoretically just what this young team needed.
Only Palat spent a good chunk of that first season in New Jersey on injured reserve following groin surgery and when he returned, he looked slow and out of sorts, averaging less than .5 points per game for the first time in his career since his initial cup of coffee in Tampa Bay during the 2012-13 season.
Devils fans did get a dose of “Playoff Palat” that postseason—he put up 3 goals and 4 assists in 12 games and was a major contributor in the first round when New Jersey rebounded from an 0-2 hole to beat the hated Rangers in seven games. Unfortunately, that glimpse of production did not carry over to last season, where Palat posted a mere 11 goals and 20 assists in 71 games while skating alongside either Nico Hischier or Jack Hughes on the top two lines for more than half his minutes at 5-on-5 plus another 100 minutes of power play time, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
It took new Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe just three games into the 2024-25 season before demoting Palat down to the fourth line with muckers Curtis Lazar and Nathan Bastian for Saturday night’s contest in Washington. It was a no-brainer, as the Palat/Erik Haula/Stefan Noesen trio had been getting worked over quite a bit to that point. Newly acquired Paul Cotter has been a wrecking ball with a hot stick flying out of the gate and deserved the additional ice time in Palat’s spot.
The move paid immediate dividends as Cotter scored twice while Haula and Noesen each registered three assists in New Jersey’s 5-3 victory. Cotter, who is proving any detractors like me wrong with every shift (it seemed odd to me that he was a healthy scratch during Vegas’ last two playoff runs when such “hard-to-play-against” types should be most valuable), now has four goals on the season after notching 7 during the 2023-24 campaign.
Meanwhile, Palat played fine in his new role—he was defensively diligent and wasn’t on the ice for any goals against in his 13:12 of action. That was a step up from his minus-2 performance in his prior outing, a 4-2 loss to Toronto. In that game, he saw just 10:25 of ice time, his lowest total since suffering an injury during a January 2022 contest versus Buffalo.
Of course, ideally you’d like your fourth line skaters to be either youngsters or veterans on contracts near the minimum, not $6 million men. But unless Fitzgerald opts to expend a Draft pick to dump the remaining two-plus seasons on a team near the cap floor, the Devils’ pivot will be stuck in the mud.