“I love it” – Ondrej Palat will be participating in the latest run to the Stanley Cup Final with the Lightning
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Ondrej Palat
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Ondrej Palat may not be one of the noisiest players in the NHL but he sure performs his job stealthily in the Stanley Cup Playoffs coming only when needed to help his teammates while happily ceding the spotlight to them. Though his role doesn’t garner much attention, his teammates and coach reject the notion that he is not one of their top players.
The forward has the knack of rising only to the occasion when the Lightning needs it most. With 42 secs remaining in Game 3 he assisted the team to win against the New York Rangers. The same happened at the Game 1 loss to the Avalanche, where Palat slipped past a check from defenceman Cale Makar on his way to the net to assist Nikita Kucherov during the second period that sparked after the Lightning trailed by 2 goals.
Ondrej Palat loves being the stealthy guy on the team
Ondrej Palat will likely play a key role if the Tampa Bay Lightning plays in Game 2 at Ball Arena on Saturday. The team recorded 11 game-winners while Palat carries a career point of 46 in the postseason. Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, “He’s like the deadly assassin,”. “You never really know he’s there until he does some major damage to you.”
While in response, Palat noted, “Yeah, I love it”. “I like to play under the radar and just be quiet and do my job. Do my job good. It’s pretty simple.” With his strategy, he has reached 50 points three times including an NHL career-high of 63 with 16 goals and 47 assists in 75 games during the 2014-15 season.
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As written on nhl.com, Steven Stamkos commented, “For the guys that know ‘Pally’ and have been here as long as we have and as long as I have, it’s not surprising to us to see him come up clutch in those moments”. ” … Pally is a guy that no matter what situation, no matter what stage, he’s ‘Mr. Reliable.'”
Lightning coach, Jon Cooper further commented, “The reason this is so Ondrej Palat is that nobody really pulls him out of the group until you see that he’s got the most game-winners in (Lightning) playoff history,”. “And it took that for people to notice what he does. I think that’s a perfect example about Palat, is nobody really notices him except the guys in the room that know how valuable he is to us.”
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Kaushani Chatterjee
(2151 Articles Published)