What are the Colorado Avalanche getting in Zach Parise?

After days of rumors, the Avs made the signing of former nemesis Zach Parise official shortly before the puck dropped on their game against the Los Angeles Kings. The 39-year-old Parise signed for a pro-rated $825K.

Following the signing, the question immediately turned to how Parise might help this Avalanche forward lineup. I’m always here to help answer that question, so let’s talk about who Parise has been since leaving the Minnesota Wild two years ago.

Going to the New York Islanders following his buyout from the Wild, Parise reinvented himself from the top-six forward he had been his entire career to more of a bottom-six forward as his skating slowed and skills eroded. Despite that, Parise had seasons of 15 and 21 goals in New York while averaging just 15:43 of ice time.

The goal totals are nice, but we saw that doesn’t necessarily translate to Avalanche success when Tomas Tatar, he of seven 20-goal seasons, was signed late in the offseason and scored only one goal in 27 games before being traded to the Seattle Kraken.

What gives some confidence that Parise can fit in Colorado is that even though his skating has slipped from his prime, it’s still about league average. That is to say, he shouldn’t be quite the misfit Tatar was and Ryan Johansen remains. Here are some NHL Edge skating stats from last year that show a guy who shouldn’t struggle so much to keep up with Colorado’s prolific pace.

He’s certainly not a burner anymore, but he should be okay unless that skating has taken a major dip in the offseason. About that offseason…

One of the major concerns with a player Parise’s age is how well his body will hold up to the rigors of the lengthy NHL season and what the Avalanche hope will be a deep playoff run. Parise is a workout warrior who played all 82 games each of the last two seasons but will join the Avalanche after the All-Star break.

His first chance to play for them will be February 5, Colorado’s 50th game of the season. That means the Avs are only asking him to get through 33 regular-season games and however many playoff games they end up in. That’s a reasonable gamble on health.

Okay, but is he any good?

Parise, like all players, has his strengths and weaknesses, but at his age his profile has become a bit more pronounced. He isn’t the play-driver he was in his prime and he’s never been an ace defensive wing, but his game is still holding up well.

His goal-scoring is an asset as a player who has made a career of working hard around the net and scoring a lot of junk goals. He’s big on deflections and has a nose for rebounds in the chaos of the netfront. Those attributes are a big part of the appeal for the Avs.

He also averaged 1:47 of PKTOI per game, third on the Islanders last season. As we see from above, his results were strong and he presents Jared Bednar as another option to add to that unit.

I also want to point out the “Competition” number in the last player card. It’s a three-year average so it isn’t entirely indicative of last year, but these strong on-ice results came against tougher competition than Parise should regularly see in a balanced Avalanche lineup. Speaking of that lineup…

Great. Where will he fit into the lineup?

I think he’s still a serviceable player at left wing and with Miles Wood locking down a spot alongside Ross Colton and Logan O’Connor, it’s fair to wonder exactly where Parise is even going to play.

In the immediate, this should be easy enough. Parise should take Andrew Cogliano’s spot alongside Johansen and Artturi Lehkonen, which would push Cogliano into Kurtis MacDermid’s spot on the fourth line and put MacDermid back as a healthy scratch.

If Valeri Nichushkin returns to the lineup this year, things get a little trickier because the Avs should not be in a hurry to break up that Wood-Colton-LOC trio as they have been fantastic together. The “easy” answer is that Parise replaces Cogliano on the fourth line, but it’s hard to imagine Cogliano being a healthy scratch when he is so respected by both the locker room and coaching staff.

To be honest, that’s a problem whenever that happens. We don’t know when or even if Nichushkin will return this season, so this is depth at that position for the immediate and long-term future. There’s a best-case possibility where Nichushkin and Gabe Landeskog are both back in the playoffs and the team adds Nikolai Kovalenko. If that happens, I don’t really know where Parise fits. He’s not a center and never has been so that doesn’t appear to be a realistic option at the moment.

That would be an ideal scenario, though, and we all know the Stanley Cup Playoffs rarely present teams with ideal scenarios so we’ll just have to see. In the end, this provides the Avalanche undeniable immediate value with all of the uncertainty surrounding Nichushkin’s status. It puts the Avs at 47 out of 50 contracts, so there’s still room to maneuver at the trade deadline coming up in about six weeks.

Parise’s addition does nothing to change the need for the Avs to address center depth, but this is another guy who can help in their chase for the Central Division title race.