Ondrej Palat hadn’t seen his former team at all this season, his first with the New Jersey Devils, but Tuesday night marked the first of a back-to-back with the Tampa Bay Lightning. and the first of three games they’ll face each other in the next week. It also marks a reunion of sorts with the franchise where Palat spent 10 years of his NHL career.
Palat signed with the Devils in the offseason and has been a veteran presence on a team that has been one of the hottest in the NHL all season. New Jersey entered Tuesday’s game tied for first in the Metropolitan Division with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The veteran forward was focused on the importance of Tuesday’s game, but still had some emotions heading into the first meeting of the year with his former team.
“I think after today it’s going to be just a normal game,” Palat said after the team’s morning skate at Prudential Center. “Maybe playing at (Amalie Arena), it’s going to be a little weird. Like I said, when the puck drops it’s just another hockey game.”
Palat said that he had prepared himself last season for it to be his final year with the Lightning, but the realization that Tampa was no longer his home came when he finally put pen to paper with the Devils.
He called the first preseason game with the Devils weird, but he has since settled in. Palat registered 19 points (8 goals, 11 assists) in 34 games this season after missing a part of the season due to a groin injury.
Now he gets to face his former club fully comfortable with his new one. “Everything is great here and I feel like home here,” Palat said.
Palat should feel plenty comfortable in New Jersey now, especially with all of the winning the team has done this season. And they have the chance to build some ground between themselves and the Hurricanes, who were also in action on Tuesday night.
They’ll have to do so with the oddity of facing the same team three times in such a short span, but Devils head coach Lindy Ruff said it wasn’t something that was too foreign to his team.
“I think we have a feel for these types of situations during the COVID season where you’re playing teams, 2-3 games in row,” Ruff said before Tuesday’s game. “It is about instant adjustments. You get to play them again right away. I mean we’re gonna play them three of the next four. I’ll probably make some adjustments to what we do and we’ll try to make some adjustments to how they play.”
Devils in the details: The Devils hosted 16-year-old Toms River, New Jersey native Reilly Hoagland, a cystic fibrosis patient and a Make-A-Wish New Jersey wish recipient, on Tuesday as part of his wish to be a Devil for the day. Hoagland was the Devils’ honorary selection in the 2020 NHL Draft and was given a custom stall in the Devils’ locker room, fist-bumped the players after warmups and met with team captain Jack Hughes after the game. … Curtis Lazar, who the Devils acquired at the trade deadline, was expected to appear in his first game with New Jersey since the trade.
