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Zach Parise to see doctor on Monday; says he’s been hurt since August

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Last night saw Devils star Zach Parise miss out on the third period during the Devils 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings with what the team is calling a “lower body injury.” Parise flew back to New Jersey with GM Lou Lamoriello before the game was over to get checked out further, leading to speculation that Parise may have a serious affliction.

Today, Parise spoke a bit with Tom Gulitti of Fire & Ice to discuss the injury, how he’s slated to see a doctor on Monday, and spring a special surprise about just when he started feeling out of sorts.

Parise did not say what his exact injury is, but said it was something that occurred while skating during his summer training and has been getting worse. That is why he has sat out practice a couple of times this season, most recently on Thursday in Anaheim.

“It’s been bothering me,” he told me. “I know exactly when I hurt it. I hurt it in August and it’s been bothering me. It hasn’t gone away. I kind of hurt it every game,”


It’s noble that Parise was trying to tough things out while the team was struggling and given the salary cap hell the Devils are in, Parise being out of the lineup with a mild injury wouldn’t afford the Devils the ability to call someone up to take his spot. Playing through pain was almost a necessity for anyone on the Devils given the circumstances but Parise admitting he hurt whatever it is he hurt in August has to be something either the Devils knew full well about or it’s a sudden and unwelcome revelation.

Should Parise be out for an extended amount of time thanks to an injury he’s known about since August, it makes for an incredible and terrible blow for the Devils, especially since it would seem that it could’ve been something at least handled a little bit before or during training camp.

That’s a lot of “ifs and buts” for an injury we still don’t know what it is and the severity of it either, but with the Devils being in such a bad way to start the year, everything will get overanalyzed and if the other major scorer on the team aside from Ilya Kovalchuk is going to possibly miss significant time thanks in part to an injury suffered before training camp even began... That’s a major problem.