Zach Parise Injured, Won’t Return Thursday

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Minnesota Wild forward Zach Parise was injured in the first period of Thursday’s game against the Nashville Predators. The team is calling it a “lower body” injury and saying that he will not return to the game.

Early in the game, Parise took a hit from behind by Nashville’s James Neal. From replays it looks like his knee gets tweaked a bit in the hit. Parise limped off the ice and went down the tunnel immediately after the hit, but he came back out shortly after and didn’t miss a shift.

Parise appeared to be moving around alright, even drawing a penalty, but eventually went back down the tunnel with a little over two minutes left in the first period.

Watch a couple angles on the replay, courtesy of @myregularface, below.

https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/662441690662244355
https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/662441253200506881

Neal ran Ryan Carter from behind later in the period in a play where Carter hadn’t even touched the puck. Carter took exception to it and both wound up going to the box for a couple minutes.

https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/662444897723547648

If Parise misses any significant time the team may be in trouble with Justin Fontaine and Tyler Graovac on injured reserve already and very little happening offensively with their AHL club in Iowa. Even worse? The team’s leading scorer in Iowa, Michael Keranen (who could be an interesting addition), is out of the lineup with a lower body injury.

Through 11 games this seven Parise has seven goals and two assists with an average ice time of 19:43.

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