In less than a month, Peter Harrold has gone from AHL call-up to skating in the NHL playoffs. And playing well, to boot.

After picking up an assist Tuesday night in the Devils’ Game 6 win, his second of the series, the defenseman earned praise from coach Pete DeBoer.

“He’s solid,” DeBoer said. “He’s come in after playing in the minors the entire year and really given us some solid minutes back there. He’s good defensively, he can skate the puck out of trouble, he can add on the offensive side of the puck. He’s a low maintenance guy and he’s got some veteran savvy to him. You can tell he’s played NHL and NHL playoff games before.”

Harrold had played in two playoff games in 2010 with Los Angeles, but the quick move up the ladder — he came up for good March 27 — did take a bit of an adjustment.

"A little bit," he said. "I've played a couple of playoff games before so I know it gets ratcheted up a bit but I think everyone settles down after the first game. You get used to

it."

New Jersey Devils vs. Florida Panthers Game 6 of Eastern Conference Stanley Cup playoffs. 41 Gallery: New Jersey Devils vs. Florida Panthers Game 6 of Eastern Conference Stanley Cup playoffs.

Harrold’s ascension has come concurrently with Stephen Gionta’s, his former teammate and roommate at Boston College. They shared a suite their junior year and a room their senior year. Gionta has a goal this series and is a team-best +4 – all after being called from AHL himself for the last game of the regular season.

“This is awesome,” Harrold said. “Hopefully we can make a long push and it would be great to share with him.”

• So what does Travis Zajac have for an encore after scoring the game-winning overtime goal in Game 6?

“Just winning Game 7 would be nice,” he said.

He did receive “quite a few” texts Tuesday night and Wednesday morning after his heroics, including texts from all three of his brothers.

“It was pretty cool,” Zajac said. “It’s (OT goal) definitely rewarding but it means nothing if we don’t win tomorrow.”

• This will be the first Game 7 of Ilya Kovalchuk's career, not that he doesn't have experience elsewhere, including Olympic and World Championship games for Russia where it's win or go home. Nonetheless, the excitement is there.

“It will be my first Game 7,” he said. “I can’t wait.”

He added: “Emotions are high because there’s a lot of expectations.”

The wait will also be longer because of the pushed-back 8:30 p.m. start time to appease television viewers. Though, perhaps, that may not be a bad thing that the third period will begin roughly the same time overtime usually does.

“That’s when we wake up usually,” Kovalchuk said. “It takes us a little while.”

Rich Chere contributed to this report.