NHL Free Agency: The three best landing spots for Zach Parise

2. Vegas Golden Knights

Per Michael Russo of The Athletic, who covered the entirety of Zach Parise’s time with the Minnesota Wild, the forward wants nothing more than to play in a place where he will be comfortable and where he also has a pre-existing relationship.

As a result, the Vegas Golden Knights would appear to be a good fit given that Head Coach Pete DeBoer coached Parise and the New Jersey Devils as they went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012 and, per Russo again, Parise absolutely loves DeBoer.

Parise was the Captain of that Devils team and he could be very tempted to go and play in a fun city like Vegas for a Head Coach he adores, not to mention the fact that the Golden Knights are built to win right now.

They have fallen short the last couple of years, including shockingly losing to the Montreal Canadiens in the Semifinals of the 2020-21 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but they have the roster to make a deep run and Parise would be a nice piece.

He could be the depth scorer that this Vegas team needs given that they have historically struggled to generate secondary scoring from their bottom-six, and the 36-year-old could also potentially be a nice fit alongside Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty and on the second power play unit.

There’s also the fact that Parise is a respected leader and he’s seen as a real glue-guy in the locker room, while he knows what it takes to go deep in the postseason so that could also be a huge selling point for a Vegas team that has struggled to get over the final couple of hurdles.

As could the fact that, at 36-years-old, Parise is eligible to sign a one-year, over-35 deal with performances bonuses that wouldn’t count against the cap in 2021-22, which is great news for the Golden Knights who are already right up against the cap.