Parse staying put

There’s been plenty of discussion in the past few days about Scott Parse, and the fact that he wasn’t recalled from Manchester when players such as Elkins and Moller were. Today, I asked Terry Murray about Parse’s play while he was with the Kings, and whether he felt there were “peaks and valleys” in Parse’s nearly two-month stint in the NHL…

MURRAY: “Yeah, there were. And that’s pretty normal for a player. This is exactly the conversation I had with him, in my office, one on one. I’ve had this meeting with players over the years, and it’s exactly the same scenario with every player that I see who falls into this category. Skill player, can score highlight-reel goals, plays the game pretty good, but there’s always the parts of the game that coaches look at, and it’s not quite enough.

“So we give you time to get through that, to improve. Still not where it needs to be, so you get sent back down, and the player is upset at the coach and the organization because, `I scored four or five big goals, they looked great, why can’t I play there?’ And as you go through your career now, as a player, you’re going to go to four or five different organizations, possibly, and it’s going to be the same scenario. At the end of your career, you’re going to look back and say, `I was screwed, my whole career.’ But you know what? I was very upfront with him, in discussing this, because again, I’ve seen it almost a thousand times.

“What’s important for him, as I talked to him on the plane, was, `Scotty, you need to go down and work on all of those areas of the game that we talked about. The dot-to-board, the checking, the intensity every shift that you’re out there. When you get that down, you’re going to be a player in the NHL and you’ll be a very good player, because the other stuff, the highlight-reel stuff, I can’t teach you that. But this is about an attitude that you need to bring, that high-level intensity in your game, with a very competitive game. And you’re going to be a good player.’

“Brutally honest, but that’s the way it is. And he understood that. That was the nice thing. We discussed it, and he talked about it, and it was good.”