Was it his back or was it not his back? That is the question.
Despite multiple reports, winger Zach Parise said the injury that has kept him out of the Minnesota Wild's season so far was not his back. But he declined to say what exactly it was or if it was an injury he's dealt with previously.
Parise skated Monday with the team at Xcel Energy Center after not traveling on the season-opening road trip. Here is what he would say about his injury:
"Yeah, it just kind of came out of nowhere," Parise said. "I was really surprised a couple weeks before camp and just started flaring up a little bit. And then you were able to see it was weird because it would come and go, and I skated with the team a couple times thinking it was gone, and it would show up again. So had to just take some time off and let it calm down."
The only player missing was winger Mikael Granlund, who missed Friday's practice and Saturday's game with a groin injury. Coach Bruce Boudreau said Granlund went to see a local doctor Monday.
"I really think it's short-term," Boudreau said. "I saw him yesterday, and he felt a lot better yesterday. When you have the few amount of games that we have right now, you don't want to make something worse and worse and worse. That's why we kept him off the game the other day. Now that's three days that he's been off the ice, so we'll see how he is later on today."
As far as a timetable for Parise's return, with another road game at Chicago on Thursday and the home opener Saturday against Columbus, Boudreau said he has "no clue."
"But he made it through the whole practice, and he made it through the little skate at the end," Boudreau said. "I know he's been skating, but it's different when you're skating with guys. But he's going to be the one, and the trainers and the doctors, that are going to be saying, 'Hey, I'm ready to play,' not me."
Here were the lines from practice as well:
Nino Niederreiter, Eric Staal, Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno, Mikko Koivu, Jason Zucker
Tyler Ennis, Joel Eriksson Ek, Chris Stewart
Daniel Winnik, Matt Cullen, Zach Parise
