Fighting Back: Parise's road to recovery

This article appears in the February issue of Wild Magazine.
It was just a normal, routine offseason for Wild forward Zach Parise.
The 2016-17 season was a frustrating one for Minnesota's alternate captain. A variety of illnesses -- including a couple of bouts with strep throat and a battle with the mumps -- combined with a lower-body injury early in the season limited Parise to just 69 games.
But a strong offseason program had the 33-year-old primed for a bounce back season. With no World Cup of Hockey changing his summer routine and no Winter Olympics interrupting the NHL season, Parise was looking forward to the 82-game grind of the regular season.
Suddenly, a guy who was one of the finest athletes in the world, a man at the peak of his profession,
could not even sit in a chair to eat
.

The back injury that had flared up two seasons prior, and cost Parise the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs, had returned just a few days before the start of training camp.
At first, Parise tried the rest and rehabilitation route. But as the back got more and more tender, as it became harder to sit up straight or carry a backpack or pick up one of his children, the option Parise had spent a year and a half trying to avoid came quickly into focus -- surgery.
"Not really be able to sit down at all during the day because it was so painful or having to lay down at your house for a majority of the day," Parise said. "That's when you kind of swallow your pride a little bit and just like, 'Alright, there's something seriously wrong. I think that's when I recognized that I needed to go down the surgery path."
On Oct. 24, Parise walked -- gingerly -- into TRIA Orthopedic in Bloomington, committed to relieving the pain, numbness and discomfort he had been feeling in his back and legs for several weeks by having microdiscectomy surgery.
Later that afternoon, he walked out a changed man.

"Right when I woke up [from surgery] the pain was gone. It was fantastic," Parise said. "That itself was a great feeling, and leaving there not feeling like I had been, being able to even sit in the car on the ride home, was great.
"From then on, I've never really had any more of the nerve pain. That was a good sign that it was fixed and it was ready to go."
It took 69 days of rehabilitation, rest and practice time before Parise made his 2017-18 season debut in the NHL against the Florida Panthers.
It was a long road for the 13-year veteran, who began his journey back to game action on Nov. 29, when he stepped on the ice for the first time since the operation.

"You never know how it's going to be, the first time on the ice for a little while."

-- Zach Parise

On that chilly early morning at St. Thomas Ice Arena in Mendota Heights, Parise wasn't much different than a typical pee-wee or bantam, stepping back onto the ice for the first time in a couple months.
That day, it wasn't Wild coach Bruce Boudreau or assistants John Anderson, Bob Woods or Darby Hendrickson putting him through a practice ... it was skating coach Diane Ness, who works with Parise and a number of other NHLers during the summer.
A puck didn't touch the ice until the final moments of his session. Instead, Parise went back to the basics; skating in figure-eights, perfecting his stride, getting the feelings back of being on his edges again.
Most importantly, Parise came away completely unscathed.
"You never know how it's going to be the first time on the ice for a little while," Parise said. "But it was almost as if everything kind of came back to me at the end of the skate. Everything felt pretty smooth and most importantly, nothing hurt."
Every day between then and his debut, Parise worked on getting back to the lineup.

He returned to practice with the team on Dec. 15, began accepting contact a few days later and then
skated in a game with the team's American Hockey League affiliate
in Iowa on Dec. 28.
In that game, Parise had an assist on his second shift saw a little over 15 minutes of game action. That's when it became apparent his return wasn't far behind.
For those around Parise, it was gratifying to see his hard work pay off.

"It [was] awesome to see him get back in the swing of things, watching him skate and shoot and watching him elevate his game to where I've seen him play before. That's been fun."

-- Jordan Parise

"It's exciting to see him progress and get back to what he was and even stronger, even better. I think he feels that, which is good," said Wild forward Charlie Coyle. "It's exciting to see and to have him back and playing with us, I'm sure he's ecstatic too."
Zach's older brother, Jordan, got to spend a few days with him just before Christmas during the Wild's mentor's and father's trip to Florida.
Jordan, who has watched Zach battle back from injury setbacks before, said he believes Zach can get back to the player Wild fans know from years past.
"The hardest thing to watch as a brother is to see him not be able to perform at a level you know he can perform at," Jordan said. "It [was] awesome to see him get back in the swing of things, watching him skate and shoot and watching him elevate his game to where I've seen him play before. That's been fun."

Knowing Zach the way he does, Jordan said he believes his younger brother will want to prove the doubters wrong. It just may take some time.
"That has never wavered from him since he was five years old," Jordan said. "He's ready."
Parise certainly won't be getting any added pressure from Boudreau, who understands a return from this kind of operation is a process.

The Bloomington native knows time is of the essence, however, as Minnesota aims to continue its ascent up the Western Conference and Central Division standings.
"It'll be a challenge, but I'll take it a game at a time, but I'm hoping to be able to contribute right away," Parise said. "I know it wont be easy and it's going to need a little bit of patience, but I'm hoping to be able to contribute right away and help out with these guys.
"I just want to help them out. Each one of us wants to get this going and keep going in the right direction to climb the standings."
Related:
- Parise looking more and more comfortable - Watch: Parise's shootout winner vs. Columbus - Dad not far from minds of Zach, Jordan Parise on family and mentors trip