Minnesota Wild: Zach Parise’s Future is on His Back
Zach Parise’s absence from the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs due to a back injury can be pointed to as one of the major impacts that led to the early departure of the Minnesota Wild. Going forward the hope is that his back will not be a factor anymore, but that just might not be the case.
One of the lingering questions for the Minnesota Wild this offseason has been the health of the team’s number one superstar Zach Parise. Parise had to end his season early in 2015-16 with a herniated disk in his back and there were lots of questions surrounding whether he would require surgery to repair that disk. As it turns out Parise opted not to have surgery and he has been rehabilitating all summer successfully.
A month ago Parise told Michael Russo that he was already skating and working out. ““I’m happy [with] the way it’s going because I’m able to do what I normally would do had nothing happened,” Parise said. “That’s why I’m really optimistic and feeling really good about it.”
While on the surface this is good news, you have to wonder exactly where Parise will be going into the future. His back could make a full recovery this summer and put this injury completely behind him. However, back injuries have a way of sticking around for a while and could unfortunately be an issue for Parise going forward.
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Wayne Gretzky in 1991 and into 1992 at the age of 31, the same age as Parise is now, suffered the same injury a herniated disk in his back. At the time the doctors gave Gretzky the same options of surgery and rehabilitation, of which he opted for rehab. Gretzky was quoted as saying “The only thing I’m dealing with is getting rid of this pain,” when asked if he could play again soon. “I’m a very positive, very optimistic person, but let’s get rid of this pain.”
As we know 1992 would not be the last time Gretzky would be sidelined with his back issue. It became a nuisance injury that could even keep The Great One out of the lineup a few more times over the rest of his career. Taking into account Gretzky’s experience, Wild fans should be concerned that this might not be the last time Parise’s back will keep him out of the lineup.
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Zach will be ready for the World Cup of Hockey to play for the US and will also be ready for the start of the season. The issue really is when will his back act up in the future and how severe will it be. Knowing Parise he’s doing all the conditioning he can to make sure his back is ready for anything. But still all it takes is a hit in the right place to aggravate that disk and he could find himself taking some unwanted time off.
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So as Parise moves forward we’ll all be looking just a bit harder when he gets hit to see if that disk acts up. He can certainly he can get back to the same level of play he’s always had, it just might be that from time to time he’ll have to play through the pain which he can do or sit out when it becomes too much. But like Gretzky it’s all about getting rid of the pain, so expect that from now forward Parise might need to have time to get rid of his pain.