Zach Parise out for the long haul; New Jersey Devils try to adjust
Devils' leading goal scorer for the past four years, Zach Parise would miss the next three months until he can recover from surgery. Parise had injured his knee earlier this year and it had been bothering him for quite some time. On Tuesday, the Devils announced
that Zach had an arthroscopic surgery on his right knee to repair a torn meniscus.
The restless Parise said that he had been uncomfortable ever since the surgery. He hasn’t been able to walk with ease since having surgery and said that he felt ‘useless’ as he needed to be taken care of. Parise was scheduled only for exploratory surgery
but when the doctors stumbled upon the torn meniscus, the scope of the surgery was extended to include repair.
Parise had escaped injury through most of his career. He was thankful that the extent of his injury wasn’t too severe. “It could have been worse”, Parise said adding that he was glad there was no ligament damage.
This is the last thing that the Devils needed. They are off to their worst start in 27 years and losing their leading forward isn’t going to help. Parise somehow still manages to not be too worried about his team. “We've already got a lot of injuries, we're
not playing that great, but I'm confident the guys will be fine and still pull out of this funk that we're in without me”, said Parise.
He is disappointed though that he would be unable to help pull out the New Jersey Devils from the slump they were in. He is still trying to digest the fact that he wouldn’t be able to play hockey for such a long time.
While Zach comes to terms with the reality, Devils are trying to figure out what they are going to do without the assistant captain. In his absence, winger Ilya Kovalchuk would wear the assistant captain’s ‘A’ on his jersey. That, however, is not the full
extent of Kovalchuk’s role. New Jersey’s forwards would have to fill the gap left behind by Zach.
Devils' coach, John MacLean said that he was surprised and extremely disappointed when he found out that Zach would stay off the ice for such a long time. Parise is young and Devils want to ensure that he gets healthy as quickly as possible. MacLean added,
“He'll bounce back from it, because he works real hard.”
Parise now counts among the list, a long one, of New Jersey players who are not playing due to various injuries. The list also includes Brian Rolston, Mark Fraser and Bryce Salvador. MacLean said that Devils would share the load of the injured players and
that would require more effort on the part of some of the players. “We have some guys here who are going to have to step up and contribute”, MacLean said.
That includes Ilya Kovalchuk. The coach said that he was pleased with how Kovalchuk is involved in the game and hoped that they could get the offense going for him and the others. Kovalchuk isn’t the kind of player to choke under pressure but the fact remains
that playing for himself and Zach Parise is not going to be easy. Kovalchuk noted that Parise is a big part of their organization but there was nothing that could be done about the loss at this point. “We all need to step up, move forward and play without
him.”
Parise's departure puts Kovalchuk, captain Jamie Lagenbrunner and Travis Zajac on the same offensive line. Zajac said that Kovalchuk would need to adjust to their style of play but was confident that the Russian could do it. If Kovalchuk isn’t able to adjust,
the already struggling Devils would be faced with real problems. They have so far won only 4 games out of a total 14 this season. In their last game, they were able to defeat the Blackhawks with 5 goals against 3.
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