I don’t think there is any overstating how exciting of a prospect Zayne Parekh is for the Calgary Flames. Drafted ninth overall in last year’s draft, Parekh was coming off an extremely productive season for the Saginaw Spirit in the OHL. He scored 33 goals and tallied 96 points en route to a Memorial Cup championship on home soil while being the team’s top driver. Not to mention, he did it all from the back end.
The Flames were thrilled to draft him, and after a bit of a slow start to his season back with the Spirit, Parekh is playing at a historic pace this year. He is showing why he may just be the most exciting prospect the Flames have had since the turn of the century.
A look at Parekh’s dominant season
We have talked at length about what Parekh did last season leading up to the Flames drafting him. This season has been another great story for the 19-year-old blueliner. It didn’t start off the best for him, but after being sent back to the Spirit after training camp in Calgary, Parekh got off to a slow start—to his standards, at least.
By Christmas, Parekh was on pace for around 80 points, which would have been a substantial step back from what he did in his draft year. However, after being snubbed from the Canadian World Junior team, he seems to have taken that personally and has been playing in a completely different stratosphere than his peers.
Parekh is currently sitting with 27 goals and 80 points in just 49 games this season. That is putting him on pace to break all of the career highs he set for himself a season ago, which was already a high bar to begin with. On pace for 35 goals and 103 points, Parekh would be the first defenceman in OHL history to have multiple 30-goal seasons as a defenceman and is already fifth all-time in OHL history for goals scored by a defenceman.
He is a freak. He is playing at such a high level, and even the best NHL defencemen in the game today never reached the heights of what Parekh is doing right now. It is still not a sure thing that this production will translate into the NHL, but there are not many players that have achieved what he has. He looks to be a franchise-altering player from the backend.
Comparing Parekh to other top prospects
When comparing Parekh to other prospects the Flames have had come through their organization through the years, I think there are only two guys that can be in the conversation for being more hyped up than Parekh. Those are Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk.
When Gaudreau was drafted, he went directly to the NCAA to play with Boston College, and when he was there, he was the most electric player in college hockey. You can make the argument that he was the best college player to ever come through the NCAA. He did not really begin to garner that excitement really until his final year at Boston College when he was breaking NCAA records, and there were plenty of people who were skeptical about whether Gaudreau would be able to play at the NHL level with his size. As we all know, Gaudreau would go on to be one of the best players that ever donned the Flaming C; he certainly lived up to that expectation.
When it comes to Tkachuk, he did seem like more of a sure thing in the NHL than both Gaudreau and Parekh. Tkachuk is a part of hockey royalty, and he dominated everywhere he went, which included one of the best draft years by a prospect with the London Knights in 2016, which also finished with him winning a Memorial Cup. Tkachuk was highly profiled, and when he fell to the Flames at sixth overall, the fanbase went nuts. We knew Tkachuk was going to be a great player, but I don’t know if anyone expected him to become the 100-point winger he would become. Now, with the Florida Panthers, he has become one of the best players in the entire sport—again, something I really didn’t expect to happen when he was drafted almost a decade ago.
When it comes to Parekh, he is doing more than what Gaudreau and Tkachuk did at the time of being drafted. Sure, Tkachuk jumped to the NHL right after the draft, and Gaudreau should have been a Calder Trophy winner, but what Parekh is doing is historic. I think, as a fanbase, we have every right to consider Parekh may be the best prospect the Flames have ever had.
What is Parekh’s ceiling?
When talking about what Parekh could be in the future, I think the sky is the limit. He is ultra-skilled, skates extremely well, has a fantastic mind that helps him process the game at an elite level, and, above all, he is one of the most competitive players out there.
The comparisons are out there. Everyone is going to throw out the high-elite players like Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes. If Parekh were to become even 75% of one of those guys, it would be a massive win for the Flames. He would be the franchise cornerstone and one of the best players in the league. While I can see why those comparisons are there, I think a guy like Josh Morrissey would make lots of sense as a comparison.
Morrissey is a great skater and is very talented. He puts up points, a lot of them. He is also a very good defender. It is hard to say that Parekh is going to become one of the best players in the league, even with everything he brings to the table. I am not saying he will never reach that level, but that is a lot to put on a player without having stepped foot in one NHL game.
What is next for Parekh?
The next step for Parekh is to go and defend the Spirits’ Memorial Cup, and that starts with winning an OHL Championship. All of the individual accolades that he will achieve are great, but it’s what he can do with the Spirit that will mean the most.
After that, well, who knows? My guess is he will start the year with the Flames next season. The Flames only have two options for Parekh next season. That will either be playing in the NHL or back in the OHL, I am sure the Flames will do everything in their power to make sure Parekh is an NHL player next season as there is nothing left for him to prove in junior.
That is a long way away, but it will be a really interesting thing to watch for the next few months.
