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

Ondrej Palat

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

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2012-13	TBL	14	2	2	4	+5	0	0	0	1	16	12.5	11:44
2013-14	TBL	81	23	36	59	+32	20	3	2	3	165	13.9	18:02
2014-15	TBL	75	16	47	63	+31	24	3	1	5	139	11.5	17:26
2015-16	TBL	62	16	24	40	+10	20	1	2	4	117	13.7	17:55
2016-17	TBL	75	17	35	52	+8	39	5	0	3	162	10.5	19:07
2017-18	TBL	56	11	24	35	+16	6	4	1	0	109	10.1	17:00
2018-19	TBL	64	8	26	34	+4	20	2	0	1	100	8.0	14:53
2019-20	TBL	69	17	24	41	+25	22	4	1	2	128	13.3	16:11
2020-21	TBL	55	15	31	46	+1	26	7	0	6	111	13.5	17:27
2021-22	TBL	77	18	31	49	+15	20	1	0	5	143	12.6	16:30
2022-23	NJD	49	8	15	23	+5	6	1	0	1	79	10.1	15:32
2023-24	NJD	71	11	20	31	-9	37	1	0	0	108	10.2	15:39
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	748	162	315	477	+143	240	32	7	31	1377	11.8	16:51

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.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
55.1% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 49.3% for his club in the minutes he sat: +5.8, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“He is 6-0 and 194 and wins pucks on the wall by position rather than by force.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“He forechecks intelligently, kills penalties, and has 7 career shorthanded goals.”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“He forechecks intelligently, kills penalties, and has 7 career shorthanded goals.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“315 career assists in 748 games.”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“He is 6-0 and 194 and wins pucks on the wall by position rather than by force.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 959 minutes

Expected goals: 55.1%; 88th pct
Shot attempts: 54.8%; 89th pct

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

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

62nd

Numbers

88th

The numbers rank him 26 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 652 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 71 games

Top speed: 21.7 mph; 28th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.52 a game
Distance: 2.52 miles a game
Hardest shot: 88.7 mph; 62nd pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

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

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Nico Hischier	58.7%	51.7%	49.6%
Jesper Bratt	61.4%	50.5%	54.3%
Luke Hughes	54.2%	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.