What makes Zayne Parekh a dynamic prospect?
If there's any defenseman that intrigues me the most in this 2024 NHL Draft class, it's Zayne Parekh, defenseman from the Saginaw Spirit. With the Spirit playing an away game against the Ottawa 67's this past Friday night, I watched Zayne's game more in depth. I had seen highlights of him in the past, but I had yet to see a full shift-by-shift to understand the depth of his game, and why he is such a fascinating prospect to watch. I also was curious as to why a draft-eligible defenseman lead his team in scoring, a really good team in the OHL too, and what the underlying components to that were.
Some things I noticed:
First were the mohawk pivots, the 10-2 style, which he opens up his hips and is able to make quick maneuvering sequences based on that with ease. His ability to move off the catch on puck retrievals, swiftly turn his body, and escape pressure to move up ice was fascinating to watch on Friday. He did it effortlessly, using his mohawks to add deceptive and manipulative flair in his game as well. On multiple occasions, he'd freeze the defender by using a fake mohawk, or continuously using his mohawks to manipulate space to his leverage. This allowed him to attack up the middle, create zone entries effortlessly, and continue to walk the line offensively with purpose.
A lot of that mohawk work came into his offensive zone sequencing as well, as he'd link together a string of plays well by fading to the inside, and quickly making a pass up the blue line. He could also fade down the wall, and counteract that by doing the opposite and looking to find the inside as well.
Mohawks are extremely underrated when it comes to creating space and speed, especially with the way Parekh rolls on his outside edges to gain traction in his mohawk stance. This allows him to push pace, gain dynamic speed quickly, and maneuver from 0-60 almost instantly.
2nd was his elite puck-handling abilities, both on his forehand and backhand. He is extremely creative as a puck-handler, using his retrieval skill behind the net on breakouts, being able to put pucks into space for himself to gain speed, and his elusive puck positioning on his stick makes him a threat in many different ways. Parekh does an excellent job using his hip pocket on puck touches to incorporate deception, and he also does an excellent job passing pucks under pressure. He does this using both his forehand and backhand, but his backhand is especially noticeable. He makes first passes with ease from his backhand, and is able to effectively move pucks with pace as well.
Multiple times, he'd do a great job making a backhand play on the offensive blue line, where he could effectively keep plays alive and manage the puck under high pressure scenarios with poise.
领英推荐
3rd was his instinctive ability to lead the rush, and it was flowing out of him naturally. Sometimes, players (especially defenders) would hesitate when trying to lead the rush, impacting the structure of breakouts at times. Not with Zayne. He does a terrific job utilizing his rush play to control breakouts and zone entries with ease, and does so by himself a lot actually. There were many times on nearly every one of his shifts where he was looking to push pace, control the middle, and look to gain the offensive zone with purpose in how he attacked.
A lot of what Zayne does in his rush play is utilize proactive thinking to determine how he should attack through neutral ice. Sometimes, he'll get forced wide outside the dot lane as he did Friday night against the 67s, but he'll problem-solve his way back to the middle on offensive zone entries. Other times, he gets forced to the outside when the 67s were playing middle strong on entries, but he'll problem-solve by maintaining possession on the wall, and handling the 1v1 with his skating and puck protection.
Parekh does an excellent job incorporating pace and cruising speed to his rushes, which doesn't allow neutral zone defensive coverage to get set up properly, at least initially. Because Zayne attacks with pace, he forces defenders to then match his speed, and figure out how to defend him.
On Wednesday night in Moncton, Parekh will take part in the Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game. Along with many other highly touted prospects from the CHL who are eligible for the 2024 NHL Draft, it should be very intriguing to see how Parekh fares with the rest of them.
Thanks for reading my 25th post on my Habits Hockey newsletter! Content will be posted regularly for the newsletter here on LinkedIn and Substack.