Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Parise Needs Knee Scope

The injury woes for the New Jersey Devils continues to get worse as the results on the ice don't seem to get any better. The update on Zach Parise, who left Saturday night's game with a lower-body injury and flew home to New Jersey, is that he will have to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery to have a look and clean up inside of his knee.  An MRI showed that there was no structural damage, but something still needs to happen.  The timetable for his return won't be known until after the surgery.

On a side note, the Devils will also be without rookie centre Jacob Josefson for the next 6-to-8 weeks with a detached ligament in his hand, which he suffered against the San Jose Sharks over the weekend.

One of the leading reasons why the Devils have been sputtering out of the gates is because of their lack of offense, which Parise is definitely guilty of being a part of.  In the first 12 games of the season, he has only scored 3 goals and 3 assists for his club, which is well below the now-expected average of around a point-per-game from the smaller superstar.

If arthroscopic knee surgery has taught us anything in the past, I think we will be looking for Parise to miss 4-to-6 weeks after his scope, which should put him back in the Devils line-up in the middle of December at the latest. Definitely not the situation that the Devils need right about now.

ImplicationsNor is this the situation that Don D. was looking for right about now either.  It should be fair to think that Don was banking on a big season from Parise this year, as he picked the Devils scoring star in the 2nd round of the draft, 25th overall.  Arguably, Parise should have gone higher in the draft, according to some publications, but Don got a bargain (at the time) by picking him in the 2nd round, but now Don is currently sitting in 19th place and is without his top forward in the pool.  This is not good news going forward.

Link to the Injury/News Page

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