After Zach Parise signed a one-year contract this summer, a lot of people started reading into it. Why wouldn't he sign a long-term deal? Does this mean he's angling to leave New Jersey at the end of the upcoming season?
On Thursday, Parise talked about the contract and said by no means did he sign the deal thinking it would be a one-and-done situation.
"We talked about both," Parise said of discussing short- and long-term deals. "Without getting into too much detail with respect to everyone involved, we came down to that and that made the most sense. We said it right after we signed it, that we were going to keep talking. It's not as if we're not going to talk until next June 30. We'll keep going and keep working on it."
Parise said despite the rumors that he wants to test free agency, he likes playing for and living in New Jersey and would like to stick around.
"I know people's initial reactions are, 'Oh, it's one year and get out of there.' But that's not how it went down, that's not how it worked out. We'll keep trying to figure it out."
Parise also talked about his commercial, in which he plays a police detective who's partnered with a pair of Easton hockey skates. During the ad, Parise appears to slide across the hood of a car, causing some to question why he'd do that when he was dealing with a knee injury.
"I had a stunt double for that," Parise said. "I took a lot of heat from people saying, 'You can't play hockey but you can slide across a hood?' That wasn't me. I literally just got my brace off four days before that. I could barely walk, so I wasn't in any condition to be doing that. That wasn't part of rehab."