This is an interesting article posted in the Virginia-Pilot by a correspondent named Jim Hodges about Mark Parrish and his struggles to play his way back into the NHL. Link to article HERE and pasted below.
The hardest time is at night, after a game, or during the afternoon after practice when he calls wife Nichole back home in Minnesota, where she is a month away from presenting 2-year-old Giana with a brother.
"It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, maybe not as a hockey player but as a person," said Mark Parrish, who is camping out in Norfolk and in various ports the Admirals visit, trying to resuscitate his career.
He had it all: a five-year, $13.25 million contract to play for the Wild down the street from where he had played high school hockey in Minnesota. Two seasons later, in July 2008, he had a $5.5 million payoff to be unemployed.
Minnesota wanted to get under the NHL salary cap, so the Wild shed Parrish, who moved from coach Jacques Lemaire's dog house to unemployment.
It's not the money. It's the hockey.
A false start in Dallas last season - Parrish had three goals in his first game for the Stars, but finished the season with only eight in limited playing time - was no help, in part because he played with anger, but not enough conditioning as a 31-year-old caught in a youth movement.
Nor was training camp in September with Vancouver, where there were no jobs.
The New York Islanders called, but nothing happened. Parrish called Brian Lawton, his former agent and now general manager of Tampa Bay and the Admirals.
"I told Brian, 'If I go home, I might as well hang it up,' " Parrish said. "After the last couple of years, I knew I just had to get back into playing hockey, get back into the routine of playing games again."
It made sense to Lawton and to Admirals coach Darren Rumble. "As long as a player has that fire, he wants to compete," Rumble said. "If you lose it, you can't get it back. It's gone. He still has it, and he knows that if he stays back in Minnesota, shoveling show, that he's not going to get a look by an NHL team."
And so Parrish has played, not so well at first, but better now and with enthusiasm. He has six goals, three in the past three Admirals games, and playing on a line with Radek Smolenak and Brandon Bochenski - a scoring line - has picked up his game.
To where it was when he was scoring 24 and 26 goals in two seasons with Florida, or 17, 30, 23, 24 and 24 with the Islanders? To where he scored 216 times in 704 NHL games?
That remains to be seen. Scouts come in from St. Louis and Montreal and other NHL outposts to take a look. None has taken him back with him yet. His agent's phone rings with inquiries, but not offers. Not yet.
It might be that he's just now playing well enough to impress.
"I finally feel I'm getting back to myself, not confident so much as comfortable with my game," Parrish said. "I'm comfortable enough to be more patient, not try to force things. When an opportunity arises, I can play smarter, take advantage of it."
An opportunity arose 10 days ago in Hershey. Parrish had only three goals and was recovering from a collarbone injury that cost him six games. He just signed his second 25-game Professional Tryout Contract and had a soul-searching talk with Rumble.
"I wanted to see where his head was at," Rumble said. "He said he's enjoying it here and he still likes to compete."
And Rumble offered another observation.
"After I'd gotten about 20 shots and nothing had been going in, Rums came up and said, 'Parri, I'll be honest with you. I think you're looking at what's in front of the net and not the net,' " Parrish said. "You get so focused on what's in front of you, the guy who's trying to block the shot, the sticks, the goalie, you're looking at them so much that it's natural to just kind of shoot it at them."
At Hershey the next night, the game was just over a minute old when Parrish clanged a puck off a Hershey goalpost and into the net.
OK, hidebound hockey tradition says that's the way month-long scoring droughts end, and so Parrish could celebrate, but his was muted.
A period later, Smolenak sent a puck to Parrish in the right faceoff circle. Hershey goalie Jason Bacashihua spread in anticipation of a shot, leaving only the barest hole, perhaps 6 inches square. But the puck is only 3 inches across, and Parrish found the net. This time, exuberance.
"This time, it was definitely in my head to just look up and find mesh," Parrish said. "It was just nice to know that I hit the spot I was aiming for."
All goals, then, are equal - but only on the scoreboard.
"As a goal-scorer, it always seems to be the bank shot, the one that you almost don't intend, that goes in first," Parrish explained. "For some reason, I guess, that kind of relaxes you, but as a goal-scorer, you're still not happy until you have that one that goes exactly where you intend it to go. A shot where you pick your spot and just hit it.
"I remember after that, it was such a relief. I just made a big circle thinking, 'It's about time. I've been waiting for you. Yep, it's still there. Keep working.' "
And then, Saturday night against Manitoba, he did it again on a pass from Bochenski. Parrish has three goals and three assists in his last three games going into tonight's meeting with Wilkes Barre/Scranton at Scope.
After feeling his way through an unfamiliar situation, and after spending time on lines whose young members, like 20-year-old Dana Tyrell, could learn from him, Parrish is comfortable.
"You know, it was something at first I didn't realize," he said. "When I first got here, I was so focused on getting used to it and not getting in the way. You don't want to step on toes.
"I think I didn't realize how much my experience would come in handy for these kids. I would see something and think, 'why is he doing that?' Then I realized that nobody's taught him the way guys like Dino Ciccarelli and Bret Hedican in Florida taught me.
"It dawned on me that myself, Craiger (Ryan Craig) and some of the other guys - we're the older guys. It's an adjustment, because it's a different dynamic. Now I'm teaching. And now, I'm enjoying it."
But he's still playing with a goal in mind. He wants to win, but he has to fit in with a team to turn scouts' heads.
"I'm much more concerned about my complete game," Parrish said. "I want to score goals, and I know to get to where I want to be, I have to score goals. But at the same time, I'm not going to put myself at risk because I want to win. Winning is way more important."
Now that he's playing on a line with Bochenski, who has 14 goals, and Smolenak, whose scoring is coming around, Parrish is feeling more at home.
"It's a different role from the one I've played the last couple of years, but it's one I've played my whole career before that, a goal-scorer," he said. "It's the role I'm comfortable with. It's a role I think I can still do."
And at a higher level.
A summer of work with skating guru Barry Karn has helped. Parrish is faster now. And a mental approach of putting the problems at Minnesota and Dallas behind him has made it easier to focus on the future. That future, he believes, still involves hockey in the NHL.
He's playing on a scoring line, killing penalties and playing on the power play, doing anything he's asked to do.
"You hope that these guys, these scouts, have been around and are smart enough to know that sometimes the offense isn't going that night, but you are showing the willingness to do all of the important things," Parrish said. "I'm much more concerned about my complete game."
And when that game is done, he's even more concerned about the phone calls to Nichole and Giana and the knowledge that, in another month, he'll have a son.
"I could care less what people say about my hockey," Parrish said, his eyes narrowing at the various criticisms that are repeated for comment. "My wife is pregnant and she's due in January."
That's what's most important.
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