Zach Parise Gets Zipper After Taking a Stick to the Face

Monday night’s loss to the Rangers was crushing in a number of ways. Primarily it was the Wild blowing a three-goal lead and allowing five goals on 12 shots in the third.

But it was also a crushing in the physical sense. The game saw Jonas Brodin and Erik Haula be the recipients of cheap shots and leave the game. (Though Brodin did return, Haula did not. John Moore will face the Department of Player Safety for his hit on Haula.) Zach Parise also left the game for a stretch after taking a stick to the face while on the power play from the Brodin hit.

Parise takes one to the face inadvertently from Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, who had his stick lifted by Mikko Koivu. No penalty was issued on the play and Parise did return to the game. Though he returned sporting a zipper under his nose. Here’s a screen grab of how that looked:

A screen grab from the game broadcast of Parise’s stitches.

Parise played 19:24 despite missing time to get his stitches. He had a minus-1 rating, a 72% Corsi For (CF%) at even strength (78% in all situations), and took four shots in the loss. His CF% was second best on the team at even strength. Haula finished the game at 80%, but only played 4:30 before being lost to injury.

More on Kreider’s hit if the DoPS decides to schedule a hearing.

Update:
Here’s another look at that: