Downturn in fortune for Parse

The saga of Scott Parse continues. Parse was penciled into a third-line role at the start of training camp, then appeared to be on the outs late in camp until Dustin Penner suffered an injury. That put Parse back on the third line, but it didn’t put him back in the good graces of the coaching staff. After two games in Europe, during which Parse didn’t exactly distinguish himself, he’s not slotted to be a healthy scratch tomorrow night against New Jersey. Parse, who underwent hip surgery last season, has repeatedly said that he is healthy, but after practice today, Murray still talked in terms of Parse recovering from his injury, rather than criticizing Parse’s play.

MURRAY: “That’s the way it goes. I need to get him up and going. He went through an injury that takes a lot of time. He put in a great summer. His commitment to rehabbing and getting stronger was tremendous. You couldn’t ask for any more, really. But sometimes it just doesn’t click right away, whenever you want it to. He’s only been through three weeks here of team play, and it might take a lot longer. It might take a month. I don’t know. It might take a month and a half. But there’s probably a lot of things that have to get worked through physically and emotionally, not on top of it confidence-wise. He is a scoring player, and that always is a big part of it for those players.

“You show patience, and most importantly is that he keeps that attitude of, `I’ve got to work this out myself, keep intense, keep focus, keep pushing through the practice, work through the frustration,’ if that’s what it is. You come out the other side and you’re going to be a better player and a better person because of it. So, he’s not the first guy that’s gone through this and he won’t be the last. You’ve got to suck it up, dig in and push through it.’’