Ondrej Palat was traded to the New York Islanders by the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday for Maxim Tsyplakov.
The Islanders also received a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and a sixth-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft.
The 34-year-old forward has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 51 games this season and one season remaining on a five-year, $30 million contract ($6 million average annual value) he signed with the Devils on July 14, 2022.
It's a reunion for Palat and Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche; Palat won the Stanley Cup twice with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2020-21, when Darche was Tampa Bay's director of hockey operations.
"It's exciting," Palat said Wednesday. "I'm obviously very happy to be here, part of this for this group and organization ... 'Darchy' was there throughout my career. So yeah, I'm familiar with him, with how good he is as a GM and especially as a person. You know he's, he's a great guy ... I would love to just produce a little bit more than in Jersey, but I'm not here to score 50 goals a season. I'm just here to bring the two-way game that is very important in this league, and play the right way. And wherever a coach puts me, I'll do my best to help the team win."
Darche said Palat's experience should help the Islanders in their push for a postseason berth; they are 28-19-5 and in third place in the Metropolitan Division, two points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"Ondrej Palat, obviously I have a history with him," Darche said. "... We're getting a player that played 155 playoff games, and if you look at his stats in the playoffs, his points per game, goals per game, everything. It's higher than the regular season. Even the two years with the Devils that they made the playoffs, to me, he was one of their better players in the playoffs.
"So we bring that winning pedigree, that just a guy that plays the right way, that defends well. Like we've been talking about, we want to be a bit better defensively as we move forward. ... he's won two Stanley Cups. He's won a Calder Cup (American Hockey League championship). He's won the world championship with Czechia two years ago. He's been to the Olympics in 2014 ... he's going to the Olympics again (for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026). So that experience is very valuable."
Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said Palat's qualities will be difficult to replace.
"We're going to miss 'Pally.' He's a tremendous guy, great leader. [He's] often the example in terms of hard work and competitiveness, practices, games," Keefe said following a 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. "So, a lot of that stuff doesn't show up on the score sheet, and I know he's given a hard time here because of that, but he's a tremendous person, a tremendous character, and for a team that's been trying to get there, he's a guy that's been there, done that and sets the example in lots of ways. So, we're going to miss him."
Selected by the Lightning in the seventh round (No. 208) of the 2011 NHL Draft, Palat has 515 points (181 goals, 334 assists) in 876 regular-season games for the Lightning and Devils. He also has 103 points (51 goals, 52 assists) in 155 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
"It's definitely not easy. I think everybody in here knows what Pally meant to this team, to this organization," Devils captain Nico Hischier said. "He's a guy that's won it, he's a guy that taught us a lot. He was always a guy I asked for help if I needed it. He was just a great teammate, and obviously it's never easy to see a guy go like that, but obviously we wish him all the best and we all know that's part of the business."
Tsyplakov has two points (one goal, one assist) in 27 games this season, his second in the NHL. The 27-year-old forward, who signed with New York as an undrafted free agent on May 16, 2024, had 35 points (10 goals, 25 assists) in 77 games as a rookie last season.
That performance led to the Islanders signing Tsyplakov to a two-year contract on July 25, but his ice time has dropped by more than five minutes this season (14:58 to 9:39).
It was the second trade in as many days for the Islanders (28-19-5), who are third in the Metropolitan Division. They acquired defenseman Carson Soucy in a trade with the New York Rangers on Monday for a third-round pick in the 2026 draft.
The Devils (27-24-2) are sixth in the Metropolitan, nine points behind the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins, who hold the two wild card spots from the Eastern Conference.
NHL.com independent correspondent Stefen Rosner contributed to this report
