Mark Parrishes From the Wild

by Jes

Back when I used to cover the Florida Panthers, Mark Parrish was one of my favourite prospects on the club. I always have a soft spot for players who play the kind of game I do when I play ball hockey, and Parrish came from the school of Dave Andreychuk offensive forwards.

Sadly, Parrish has never been quite able to match Andreychuk's numbers, or come close to them, and will probably be known more for being part of the awful Roberto Luongo deal than anything else.

It shouldn't be a huge surprise to see that the Wild, facing some cap issues, had to waive Parrish and his $2.5M+ salary.

"Do I think Mark Parrish can still play in the league, can he make some adjustments to still be effective? Yes," [GM Doug] Risebrough said.

The presence of Parrish, who was paid $2.5 million last season, would have cost the team a salary cap hit of $2.65 million this season, bringing the Wild about $2.1 million short of the cap.

"Too close," Risebrough said. "We were looking for a little relief away from the cap."

The team had few options, he added. "I looked at Mark's salary and at what I thought his contributions would be and they were not totally in line," he said. "It's not Mark's fault;

I negotiated the contract."

Well, Parrish's contract wasn't too out of line given that he was an unrestricted free agent, but putting an offensive winger onto a defensive team and expecting good numbers isn't always the best recipe for success.

When I look at the career of Mark Parrish, I see a player whose style of play led to quite a few injuries as well as a player who only ever scored 30 goals once.

One other noticeable trend, besides the fact that Parrish was good at not taking penalties, is that Parrish NEVER got 200 shots on goal in one season ... not even close! You'd figure a net hang-a-rounder like Parrish would easily cross that threshold, but the guy never seemed to be consistent enough to be a dangerous offensive machine.

Parrish has had a solid career, and done well for a 3rd round draft pick, but I still get the feeling he could have been so much better.

* Over at Wild Puck Banter, Pavol Lover Roy Malhberg suspects that Jacques Lemaire had a hand in this transaction. Is there something between Parrish and Lemaire we don't know about?