Wild forward Parise skates for first time since back surgery

Minnesota Wild forward Zach Parise skated Wednesday for the first time since having back surgery Oct. 24.
Parise was on the ice for 45 minutes with skating coach Diane Ness prior to the Wild's practice at St. Thomas Ice Arena in Mendota Heights, Minnesota. Parise mostly did laps around the ice then skated with a puck for the final five minutes.

"You never know how it's going to be the first time on the ice for a little while," Parise told the Wild website. "But it was almost as if everything kind of came back there at the end of the skate. Everything felt pretty smooth, and most importantly nothing hurt. So it was a really good day, a really good sign, and [I'll] kind of keep progressing, get a little more advanced tomorrow and the following day and go from there."

There is no timeline for Parise's return to practice or games. The 33-year-old was expected to need 8-10 weeks to recover from the microdiscectomy procedure, designed to repair a herniated disk and alleviate the corresponding pain and weakness in nearby parts of the body.
"I think the important thing right now is to take my time with the recovery," he said. "You don't want to hop back in there out of shape. But I'm very confident that everything is going to get back to normal and even better than it was.
"Just the lone fact of not having to fight through that thing anymore, it's going to be even better."