Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

81

Ondrej Palat

New Jersey Devils Left Wing

Two hundred and eighth overall in 2011, 748 games, a career plus-143, and two Stanley Cups.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13TBL14224+500011612.511:44
2013-14TBL81233659+322032316513.918:02
2014-15TBL75164763+312431513911.517:26
2015-16TBL62162440+102012411713.717:55
2016-17TBL75173552+83950316210.519:07
2017-18TBL56112435+16641010910.117:00
2018-19TBL6482634+4202011008.014:53
2019-20TBL69172441+252241212813.316:11
2020-21TBL55153146+12670611113.517:27
2021-22TBL77183149+152010514312.616:30
2022-23NJD4981523+561017910.115:32
2023-24NJD71112031-93710010810.215:39
2024-25 so far
Career748162315477+14324032731137711.816:51

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

71 games, 11 goals and 20 assists for 31 points, 1 on the power play, 37 penalty minutes, 15:39 a night and minus-9. He took 55.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 959 minutes, the 88th percentile, and his ice went 40-36 against an expectation of 45.51-37.09.

Six goals of scoring that did not arrive and one fewer conceded than the chances called for. An 88th-percentile chance share that produced thirty-one points, which is the gap between the play and the finishing on a third line.

The Finesse Game

108 shots at a median of 22 feet with 43 per cent from inside 20, converted at 10.2 per cent against a career 11.76.

315 career assists in 748 games. He has never been fast and never needed to be; the value has always been arriving in the right place a half-second before the puck. Eleven goals at 32 on fifteen minutes a night is roughly the floor.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 194 and wins pucks on the wall by position rather than by force.

240 career penalty minutes in 748 games is a low rate. He forechecks intelligently, kills penalties, and has 7 career shorthanded goals.

The Intangibles

A seventh-round pick in 2011 out of Frydek-Mistek, twelve seasons across two organisations, 477 points in 748 games, and a career plus-143. He won the Stanley Cup twice in Tampa Bay.

He is 33 and the contract runs a long way past the player. What is left is a 88th-percentile chance share and no finishing, which on a third line is still useful.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 959 minutes

Expected goals
55.1%
88th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
54.8%
89th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 40 for, 36 against. Expected: 45.5 and 37.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
79th
Numbers
88th

The two rank him within 9 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 379 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 959 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.1% — 4.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 959 minutes at five-on-five — 53rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nico Hischier58.7%51.7%49.6%
Jesper Bratt61.4%50.5%54.3%
Luke Hughes54.2%55.6%51.2%

58.7% together, 51.7% for him apart and 49.6% for Hischier apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

148 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 20 feet. 44% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.