{"id":453967,"date":"2026-02-11T02:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/453967\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T02:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:40:15","slug":"czech-olympic-teammates-know-what-islanders-have-in-ondrej-palat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/453967\/","title":{"rendered":"Czech Olympic teammates know what Islanders have in Ondrej Palat"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN \u2014 After Czechia came off the ice following its practice Tuesday, Radek Faksa was asked whether he\u2019s been picking Radko Gudas\u2019 brain at all about the Olympic experience from 2014 in Sochi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk more with Ondrej Palat,\u201d Faksa said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s no shade on Gudas, an alternate captain for the Czechs at these Games and a captain for the Ducks. But Palat, 34 years old with two Stanley Cups, an Olympic Games and countless appearances for Czechia under his belt on the international stage, has as much relevant experience as any other player here in Milan.<\/p>\n

The winger who became an Islander barely a week before departing<\/a> for the Olympics is still something of an unknown quantity in New York. Palat appeared to be adjusting reasonably well through his first six games with the Islanders, and general manager Mathieu Darche is more than familiar with him from their time together with the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got three points, he\u2019s meshed well with Bo Horvat, he\u2019s looked good on the walls, though the small sample of advanced numbers haven\u2019t been great.<\/p>\n

Still, six games isn\u2019t much time to figure out how someone will fit in with a team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a better idea, ask the Czechs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s really changed as a person [since 2014],\u201d said Gudas, the only other Czech NHLer to play both in Sochi and in Milan. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the beautiful things about him. He\u2019s a great guy, very humble, brings his best every time he\u2019s on the ice. Does the right things. He\u2019s a double Stanley Cup champion for a reason.<\/p>\n

\"OndrejOndrej Palatof of Team Czechia participates during training on Day 3 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brings leadership, like even before he was wearing the letter A in Tampa. So he\u2019s the hardest-working guy in the room, I would call him. Just gets better with age. It\u2019s very fun to still see him being able to do all these things.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe makes everybody around him a lot better. Gives guys a chance to be a little more offensive. He can stay on defense and make some big plays in the D-zone being at the right time, in the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palat is not wearing a letter for Team Czechia, whose leadership group includes Gudas, David Pastrnak and Roman Cervenka, the 40-year-old winger who has played in Europe his entire career and who has been to four Olympics prior to this one.<\/p>\n

2026 WINTER OLYMPICS<\/p>\n

Still, Faksa said, Palat is looked at as a leader by a team that has a real chance of getting on the medal stand here in Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got two Stanley Cups, he\u2019s got the World Championships [win with Czechia in 2024],\u201d Faksa said. \u201cHe\u2019s been in the NHL for so long, just a great guy. He plays the game the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s vocal, he can be. When it\u2019s needed, he\u2019s vocal. He can say something for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As of Sunday \u2014 Czechia has closed its practices to reporters since then, so you\u2019ll have to take David Kampf\u2019s word that the lines haven\u2019t changed \u2014 Palat was on the second line with Kampf and Ondrej Kase. Czechia opens its Olympics on Thursday against favorites Canada, which it famously beat on the way to gold at the 1998 Games in Nagano.<\/p>\n

\u201cA great guy and a great teammate,\u201d Kampf said. \u201cHe\u2019s won a lot, won two Stanley Cups. Has a lot of experience. It will be fun to play with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

That experience, mentioned by everyone in the Czech camp, is exactly what the Islanders bet on with the deal for Palat. Just nine players on the roster were there for the 2021 conference finals, when Palat\u2019s Lightning beat the Islanders. Palat is the only Islander who\u2019s played in, let alone won, a Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n

The Islanders are betting that experience will come to matter at some point once the season resumes. They are betting, too, that Palat has more left in the tank than he showed with the Devils, where 10 points in 51 games made his $6 million annual salary an albatross Darche was happy to take on, with two draft picks included.<\/p>\n

The next two weeks are going to give us a very good idea of how good a bet that was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 After Czechia came off the ice following its practice Tuesday, Radek Faksa was asked whether he\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2602,43,350,2787,31286],"class_list":{"0":"post-453967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkislanders","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-olympics","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-columnists","18":"tag-winter-olympics","19":"tag-winter-olympics-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116049689078366444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}