Dack
Registered User
- Jun 16, 2014
- 3,964
- 3,651
I bought a month of CHLTV because I wanted to check in on how the Flames prospects were doing and I watched his last 2 games.So I got to see Zayne live today.
Firstly, my friends kid was playing a game before the Owen Sound/Saginaw game. When Zayne saw the kids still on the ice, he went out in his shoes and stick handled putting on a little show for the kids. They loved it and so did the parents. So while he has this reputation of attitude issues, this was pretty cool.
As far as his game goes? He was easily the best player on the ice tonight. His skating is very good. His wrist shot is unreal. 6 shots on net tonight. His passing his also very good and very accurate. Skates with his head up and he's one of those guys that it looks like he has a magnet on his stick pulling the puck to him. Constant movement and just dominant in the offensive zone.
There were 2 plays where he kind of defended a little lazy with his stick, but overall I was very impressed.
Finished with a goal and 2 assists.
I echo a lot of your thoughts, Parekh is just fun to watch.
Offense
- High end shot that he uses both to beat the goalie and to try and generate deflections or rebounds.
- Always looking for cross seam passes and isn't afraid to try some of the more difficult passing options.
- Can beat defenders closing on him at the line 9/10 times but sometimes gets knocked down trying to beat players at the blueline.
- Creative and deceptive with the puck, he's a willing passer and really tries to get passes into the danger areas of the ice.
- Almost always joins the rush as a trailer. Unfortunately his teammates rarely seem to spot him streaking in.
- Very good at pinching to keep the puck in but does get caught occasionally.
Defense
- Good at defending one on one, he has a good defensive stick and he's a great skater so he rarely gets beat one on one.
- Good at timing stick lifts from behind when he does get beaten.
- Great gap control.
- Good at breaking up the rush with well times poke checks as the opponents enter the zone.
- Needs work in front of his own net, gets outmuscled there quite a bit, sometimes because he's just smaller than the opposing forward and sometimes just bad technique .
- Can lack focus when defending off the puck for long shifts.
- Altogether there's a lot of room for improvement but I see no reason he can't improve defensively and become an average NHL defender or better.
Transition and Misc
- He has a few icings a game that are just passes gone completely haywire but the majority of his breakout passes are clean and crisp, often leading to rush chances for the Spirit. Misa is undoubtedly his favorite target.
- Very good puck carrier in his own right, I wondered a bit about that because I thought he struggled at this in Flames camp but he's been great in both the games I saw at weaving through the neutral zone.
- A lot of Zayne's poor defending is really just puck management. He gets caught flat footed trying to make a play and looks bad when it end up going the other way. The Spirit do him very few favors in this regard. Not only is the majority of their defense just not very good but the forwards don't seem to cover very often. Like in the most recent game, the Attack's 2nd goal came off of a play where Parekh activated and beat the first defender with a spin and then had his shot blocked by a 2nd defender, it then went back the other way for an Attack goal. I think that if this were Weegar or Andersson it likely wouldn't have resulted in a goal against because the forwards would have covered or at least back checked hard enough that the chance would be disrupted.
- On these turnovers he does need to back check harder some of the time.
Additionally, I'll say that he has moments of complete brilliance. In the 2nd half of the Oct 27th game, Parekh was a two-way monster. He only finished with one assist but he could've easily had 2 or 3 more points. He set up teammates with numerous great passes and was generating quality looks of his own. He was also great defensively, with 2 minutes left in the 3rd period of a tie game a Spirit player took a double minor for high sticking, Zayne had multiple great breakups during the PK in regulation, including a game saving layout on a 2 on 1 to stop a cross crease pass. In OT I think he played the entirety (2 mins) of the PK in OT and forced bad decisions by the Attack multiple times using his speed and his smarts. Not even in a he was hemmed in for 2 minutes kind of way, they cleared it multiple times but since Parekh was playing on the far side he never had the chance to change, to his credit you never would have thought he'd been out there for a 2 minute shift.
Excuse the essay it's just been a while since I was this excited about one of our prospects. I look forward to watching him play and I'll try and watch some of our other prospects too. I think I only have OHL access so I can't watch Basha or Gridin sadly.