Dependable and reliably consistent, former Griffin Tomas Nosek is the type of player that any successful team can employ.

Story and photo by Mark Newman

        Ever since he was an integral part of the Griffins' 2017 Calder Cup championship, Tomas Nosek has found himself in demand as a two-way forward who can be an effective penalty killer and depth scorer.

        From Grand Rapids to Detroit, Vegas, Boston, New Jersey, and now Florida, Nosek has been a proven winner. After leading the Griffins in playoff scoring during the team's magical run, he has continued reinforcing his reputation as a clutch performer, often centering the third or fourth line for one of the NHL's best teams.

        And it all started in West Michigan.

        "I have great memories of Grand Rapids," Nosek said. "It's a nice city, a clean city, and we loved it. It's probably one of the best, smaller cities in the U.S. that I've ever been to. The fans were great, too, coming to our AHL games there. It was awesome."

        Nosek came here from Pardubice, Czech Republic, where he still makes his summer home with his wife, Eliška Nosková, and two sons: Patrik, 4, and Matias, 3. He remembers it being not an easy transition.

        "It was a tough start, for sure, for someone coming from another country, speaking a new language, and all the challenges – plus a little different style of hockey, too," he said. "But I think I settled in pretty good. People in the Detroit organization helped me, and I owe a big thank you to them and the people in Grand Rapids as well. It was awesome to be a part of that group."

        He credits his wife for helping him stay focused on the work he needed to do to reach his NHL goal.

        "My wife has been on this journey with me the whole time," he said. "She came in November [2014, the first year] and she's been with me here since then," he said. "Now we have two kids and a little family growing up.

        "Her support meant a lot, especially at the start when I didn't talk much English. It took me three or four months to get used to speaking a new language, and my friends and family weren't there. It was just her.

        “She became my best friend and we still have that kind of relationship. So she's my wife and also my best friend as well. As they say, happy wife, happy life."

        And while they were not father figures, Nosek is thankful that he got the chance to play for two strong coaches with the Griffins: Jeff Blashill, who was his coach during his first season in Grand Rapids as well as in Detroit; and Todd Nelson, who he calls one of his favorite coaches.

        "[Nelson would] always cheer you up and he knew his players very well –- when to push the buttons, and when not," Nosek said. "I think he's a great guy and a great coach, which is why he won another two Calder Cups after Grand Rapids. Those don't just happen."

        Nosek said the Calder Cup team won with the perfect mix of youth and experience.

        "We had a lot of experienced guys, older guys, and some great young guys, too," he said. "It all came together. We had four solid lines. Everyone knew their jobs and everyone was chipping in. I think we had a pretty good group."

        He said the team also bought into a particular style of winning hockey.

        "Todd gave us that system and let us play the hockey we played," Nosek said. "One of the biggest reasons for our success was the power play. We played five forwards pretty much the whole year, which was something I never experienced. That's one of the memories that has stuck with me."

        Nosek appeared in six games with the Red Wings during his second season (2015-16) in Grand Rapids. It enabled him to observe recent Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Pavel Datsyuk on a daily, up-close basis.

        "Whenever I was up, I always loved to watch Datysuk, what he was doing on both sides of the ice," Nosek said. "He was great at protecting the puck, but he also was the best at getting the puck away from you. I think watching him made me a better two-way player, that's for sure. If I had to name one player who influenced me, it would probably be him."

        Nosek finished his third year playing in Detroit, appearing in the last 11 games of the NHL season with the Red Wings before returning to the Griffins for the playoffs. He scored his first NHL goal on March 28, 2017 in typical Nosek fashion, crashing the net after Ben Street attempted to tip a shot by Drew Miller.

        "Everybody, I think, remembers their first goal," he said. "I saw a rebound from the board coming toward the net and I just scooped up the puck in the crease and put it in. I will never forget that feeling.

        "I like goals – it doesn't matter how. Most of my goals are scored around the net. It's tough to score now when the goalies keep getting better. I think most of my goals are rebounds or picking up the garbage around the net."

        He was happy to return to the Griffins to help finish the team's title run. In 19 playoff games, Nosek scored a team-leading 10 goals along with 12 assists and a team-best 22 points. While teammate Tyler Bertuzzi (9-10––19) took home the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the AHL Playoff MVP, Nosek got a reward of a different type.

        The Vegas Golden Knights selected Nosek in the 2017 NHL expansion draft when the Red Wings left the young forward unprotected. While it presented a new opportunity for Nosek, it also meant leaving the organization where he had essentially grown up.

        "At first, it was not bittersweet, it was just bitter," he said. "I spent three years there. I made a lot of friends and memories, and I think I proved to myself that I could be the final spot on the Red Wings’ roster.

        "I was there the last two months in the regular season, then they sent me down for the playoffs. I felt at that time that I already made myself almost an NHL player there. So my first thought was, oh my God, I have to start from the beginning again.

        "Plus everybody was saying with Vegas, there's not much hockey in this area, it will not be good. So my first thought was I am not happy."

        His perspective changed when he arrived in Las Vegas, where the ragtag collection of castoffs eventually became known as the "Golden Misfits."

        "Since day one in Vegas, I knew it's going to be good," Nosek said. "The first season was one of the best you could have as a team. I experienced new guys coming together as a group and we were tight. And that's what brought us almost to the top. Only Washington stopped us."

        Vegas defied the odds and made it to the Stanley Cup Final, losing in five games to the Washington Capitals. Despite the loss, the Golden Knights won 13 postseason games, breaking the record for the most wins by an expansion team in its first playoff appearance.

        "It was a remarkable season that proved everybody wrong who said that Vegas doesn't belong in the NHL," he said. "As the season went on, everybody still didn't believe us. I think that's what brought us together even more.

        "Even after 30 games, 40 games, everybody was still saying, 'Oh, they're not going to make the playoffs. They're going to choke.' And we played as a team and we had a great goalie in Mark Andre-Fleury. Every guy in the room was playing for each other and that's what made us good. It was a special season."

        Nosek started the home portion of that first season in memorable fashion. He scored the first goal in the team's inaugural home game at T-Mobile Arena on October 10, 2017, when Vegas was hosting the Arizona Coyotes in the second game of a home-and-home series.

        "At the time, I didn't think much about it," he said. "After the game, somebody told me, 'You scored the first goal ever at T-Mobile Arena,' and I thought, 'cool.' But when you get older and you see it from a different perspective, it means a little more, for sure.

        "I was in Vegas this past summer and I was driving by T-Mobile Arena and my wife reminded me about it and I was like, 'Yeah, that seems more cool than it did right after I scored the goal.'

        "I think Vegas is a great spot to live and play hockey. So things worked out pretty well."

        After scoring seven goals in his first season with the Golden Knights, Nosek tallied eight goals in each of his next three seasons. He has been consistently solid.

        "If you want to play at this level for that long, you have to be consistent and prove it, not just every game, but every practice – especially guys like me on the third or fourth line," he said. "There are a lot of young guys, especially when you get older, just waiting for the chance. So even in practice, you have to be 100 percent sharp, and that's what makes you a good pro."

        Both of his boys were born in Vegas – Patrik in 2020, Matias in 2021 – and Nosek has treasured every moment he has been able to spend with them.

        "Becoming a father was probably the best thing that has happened to me," he said. "Patrik was born in January just before COVID started. We stopped playing in March, so it was a good thing for me because I could see him growing every day. With the weather so hot in Vegas, we couldn't go outside, so we were just stuck at home with our baby.

        "And then my wife got pregnant again, so it was a challenging part of life, but the most rewarding as well. They say the days are long and the years go by very fast, but it's been great.

        "My boys are very energetic. They never stop. They run around all the time and they're still not listening. So it's challenging, but when they smile, when they say something to you, or when they make you laugh, I think it's the most rewarding thing."

        Nosek put them on skates for the first time this past summer.

        "They seem to love it," he said. "They have been asking if we are going back. So we are taking it step by step. I hope they keep loving it and if they want to play, they can play. If not, we'll see what else they're going to do. I'm looking forward to it."

        Having made Vegas their second home, Nosek and his family hoped to stay, but the Golden Knights' continued success meant the organization faced a budget crunch to keep its best players.

        "After four years there, I wanted to stay, but the cap space was not good, so I was pretty much forced to leave," he said. "In free agency, I signed with Boston and joined a team that was another great experience. The culture there from leaders like [Patrice] Bergeron and [Brad] Marchand was unbelievable, and so I think I got lucky with both of those teams."

        Nosek spent two seasons in Boston. The first year he was coached by former Griffins head coach Bruce Cassidy, who would win the Stanley Cup in Vegas the following season after being fired by the Bruins. "Small world," Nosek said.

        During his second year in Boston, the Jim Montgomery-coached Bruins established an NHL record for most wins in a season, going 65-12-0-5.

        "It was just that feeling you have, when you're going to the games, that you just know you're probably going to win," Nosek recalled. "I don't remember the last time I felt that way – maybe in fourth grade when we had only one loss in a season."

        For the team's stretch run and playoffs, Boston added Nosek's former teammate, Tyler Bertuzzi, bringing together the two best players from the Calder Cup team again.

        "I was talking with our coach before the trade and he was asking me about him, and I said he's a great guy and a great playoff performer, and he proved it again in Boston. It was nice to play on the same team with him again."

        The Bruins’ coaching staff during the remarkable 2022-23 season – the Bruins' sixth straight 100-point season – included two former Griffins as assistant coaches: Chris Kelly (2000-01) and John Gruden (1999-2002). "It's not a coincidence that Grand Rapids has produced many great players and coaches as well as other people around hockey," Nosek said. "That doesn't happen by accident."

        Nevertheless, Boston fans were shocked when their beloved Bruins got knocked out of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

        "If you win the regular season, it's great, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't prove it in the playoffs," he said. "Losing in the playoffs after that was not good. It put a little – not a little, but a big dark mark on that season."

        It didn't ease the pain that Florida reached the Stanley Cup Final that season, losing to Cassidy's Golden Knights in five games, or that the same Panthers won the Cup a year later. "When we were up 3-1 in games and they came back, I knew they were a special team," he said. "But losing the series hurt."

        Nosek had high hopes when he signed last season with the New Jersey Devils, a young team that had advanced to the second round of the playoffs the previous year after finishing the season with 112 points, third-most in the league.

        It ended up being a season to forget. The Devils missed the playoffs, finishing the year with only 81 points. Nosek missed half of the season with a broken foot after blocking a shot. It was the first time he missed the playoffs as a full-time NHL player.

        "I broke my foot, and then I started playing, probably earlier than I was supposed to, and the bone shifted, I needed surgery, and half the season was gone," he said. "We had a lot of injuries as a team and I think it was one of the biggest reasons we didn't make the playoffs."

        If there was a silver lining, the injury meant Nosek got to spend more time with his young boys.

        "I always try to find something positive and in that situation, I got to spend quality time with my family and be with the kids. Even when you play at home, you go to the morning skate, get lunch, take a nap, and then you go to the rink again, so on game days, you don't see them.

        "Staying home was great. I put on my dad shoes and got to work at home. I learned a little bit more about myself, too, so it was fun."

        Looking for a fresh start this season, Nosek was thrilled when he got a call from the Stanley Cup champion Panthers. He signed a one-year contract with the team on July 1.

        "I just wanted to pick a great team, a good destination, and Florida fit perfectly," he said. "When they called me, I didn't hesitate, and I signed right away."

        Nosek is determined to help the Panthers become two-time champions.

        "It's a special group and that's why I wanted to sign here, because I know they can win again, for sure," he said. "I like winning. It doesn't matter if I score goals or not, the most important thing is if we're winning."