Veteran forward Zach Parise will not be at New York Islanders training camp, according to general manager Lou Lamoriello. Parise is at home in Minnesota right now and the sense is that he will not be seeking an NHL job at this time, although that could change later on in the season.
Parise played all 82 games for the Islanders last year, finishing third on the team with 21 goals as well as a respectable 34 points. The 39-year-old winger became a key part of the Islanders forward group after spending close to a decade with the Minnesota Wild. He is famous for signing a 13-year, $98 million contract with the Wild which began in the 2012-13 season. Deals like that usually don’t work out in the end and this one was no different. Both Parise and Ryan Suter, who signed an identical contract, were bought out in the 2021 offseason with four years left on each of their deals.
Parise will earn a guaranteed $833,333 for the next six years but the real cost of the buyout is the prohibitive cap hit which greatly hurts the Wild's salary cap structure. For the next two years, the Wild will have $7.37 million against the cap from Parise’s buyout while the player is free to sign anywhere and earn more money.
The Minneapolis, Minnesota native was a part of an Islanders team that qualified for the playoffs last season but fell in six games to the Carolina Hurricanes. Parise didn’t score a single point during the Islanders’ short playoff run. He had carved out for himself a nice role as a middle-six winger on the New York depth chart. The veteran scored a combined 36 goals over the last two seasons.
Parise has played 1,224 NHL games in his career, putting up 429 goals and 879 points in that span, along with 436 penalty minutes and a +83 rating.
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