Men's Hockey: Pallis establishes presence on ice

The goal came when Northeastern, the fourth-ranked team in the country at the time, was on a power play and threatened to come back in a game Princeton had been leading the entire night. Pallis’ goal iced the game for the Tigers and was a fitting debut for a freshman who came to Princeton as the 10th-ranked defensive recruit in college hockey according to Inside College Hockey. Pallis has done his part to live up to the early accolades.

“[For] any freshman coming in, there is always a bit of an adjustment,” sophomore defenseman Cam Ritchie, Pallis’ linemate, said. “I think Derrick has done a really good job of getting comfortable as the year has gone on, elevating his play and getting better every day.”

Though Pallis arrived at Princeton surrounded by high expectations, he said he was still concerned about making the adjustment to the college game.

“I was pretty nervous about playing the first game,” Pallis said. “I’ve watched college hockey before I got here, but it was definitely a big step from the prep school where I was playing. The biggest thing I was worried about was the new speed and skill I was going to encounter.”

Since that first appearance, Pallis has appeared in all but two of the Tigers’ 29 games this season, scoring two goals and adding three assists.

One of those two scratches came last weekend against Harvard, just one night after Pallis took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to negate a Tiger power play in the third period against Dartmouth. Princeton — down 1-0 at the time — lost the game 2-0. The penalty served as a reminder that, though talented, the freshman defenseman still has much room to grow.

Pallis repeatedly mentioned the older members of the hockey team, noting that they eased his adjustment from the preps to Princeton.

“The second I got down here, almost everyone has acted as a mentor. Everyone helped me out, and we got skating right away,” Pallis said. “I had to catch on to the speed and everything. Since then, it’s been great.”

One of Pallis’ best attributes is his knack for getting the puck out of the defensive zone. Behind his own blue line, Pallis displays a degree of shiftiness and good decision-making that can frustrate his opponents.

“He’s pretty elusive. He’s good at breaking the puck out of our zone and making a good first pass consistently,” Ritchie said. “He is a great teammate, and as a partner [on defense], he makes it really easy on me. I like playing with him. He makes a lot of smart plays with the puck.”

When asked to name the individual highlight of his season, Pallis didn’t mention the goal he scored against Northeastern. Instead, he discussed the great feeling the team shares after a big win.

“After every win, coming back into the locker room with the guys is a feeling you almost can’t describe,” Pallis said. “That’s a great feeling, just being able to play with the guys on the team with all the success we’ve had up to this point.”

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It comes as little surprise that when Pallis was being recruited by a number of top college hockey programs, he settled on Princeton due to the sense of team camaraderie and the strong bond he made with head coach Guy Gadowsky.

“[It was] a mixture between the impression I got when I [met] Coach Gadowsky and when I got to meet all the guys on the team and talk to them,” Pallis said. “It pretty much wrapped me up. It was a mix of Coach Gadowsky’s views on the game and the guys [being] just a solid group of guys.”

Pallis has been playing hockey as long as he can remember. Growing up, he had a rink in the backyard of his Massachusetts home. Whenever the weather reached freezing temperatures, Pallis and his father were outside playing long into the night.

“My father definitely got me into hockey. We had a pond in my backyard, so I was out there as soon as I could skate,” Pallis said. “Growing up through the winter, I was out on the pond every night with my father.”

Unlike many college hockey players, Pallis did not spend any time playing juniors. He spent his high school years at Noble and Greenough School, scoring 42 points in 42 games last year and receiving All-New England honors.

Following his prep school success, Pallis entered Princeton at age 19, the college hockey equivalent of skipping his senior year of high school.

Given his relative youth, Pallis is looking to the off-season as a chance to improve his speed and strength, two attributes that generally improve with age.

“I think what I would need to work on is probably speed and strength. I’m not the biggest guy right now,” Pallis said. “I think that’s going to come. Spring and summer is a time for all of us to regroup and just get better as hockey players. Speed and strength would be two of the more valuable things I should gain.”

Before that time comes, Pallis and the Tigers have more pressing business to attend to. With the quarterfinal round of the ECAC tournament at Baker Rink next week, Princeton may have a chance to avenge two regular-season losses to Ivy League opponent Dartmouth.

“We have a week-and-a-half off. We’re all pretty banged up, so we need to take this time to regroup and get healthy,” Pallis said. “We just need to take it one game at a time and not look at the picture.”

With the pragmatic approach Pallis brings to the game of hockey, this should come easily to the 19-year-old ,who has found a niche playing well beyond his years.