Predicting Parekh's rookie season for Calgary Flames based on NHL comparables
The Calgary Flames are going to give Zayne Parekh every opportunity possible to crack their roster for the upcoming season.
Parekh’s only other option this season is to return to the OHL, a league in which he’s now surpassed the 30-goal barrier in back-to-back seasons. Returning him to a league which he has dominated for two straight years isn’t ideal, giving the 19-year-old blueliner a great opportunity to earn a spot with the Flames this coming season.
There is a ton of excitement amongst Flames fans when it comes to Parekh, as he’s one of the best offensive defenceman prospects we’ve seen in some time. Assuming he does wind up spending the entirety of the 2025-26 season in the NHL, here are some potential comparables to help project what his rookie year may look like.
Cale Makar
- Drafted: 4th overall in 2017
- Rookie season: 57 GP, 12 G, 38 A, 50 PTS
If we’re listing some of the elite offensive defencemen in the NHL, we may as well start with the best. Cale Makar could very well end up going down as the best defenceman in NHL history, and he seemingly had no issue jumping into the best league in the world.
It isn’t fair to compare Parekh to Makar, of course. Any Flames fan expecting those types of totals would be naive, especially given how much more talent was on the Avalanche’s roster when Makar first broke in.
Quinn Hughes
- Drafted: 7th overall in 2018
- Rookie season: 68 GP, 8 G, 45 A, 53 PTS
While Makar is viewed by most as the best defenceman in the game today, Quinn Hughes is a close second. The Vancouver Canucks blueliner has had an even better career to date than his biggest supporters could have imagined, and he was rightfully rewarded for it in 2023-24 with the Norris Trophy.
Like Parekh, Hughes is undersized at 5-foot-10, 180 pounds. He’s proven that his size doesn’t matter thanks to his elite offensive skill, and, to his credit, he’s actually become solid on his own end of the ice.
Adam Fox
- Drafted: 66th overall in 2016
- Rookie season: 70 GP, 8 G, 34 A, 42 PTS
Calgary fans are quite familiar with Adam Fox, given that it was the Flames who drafted him back in 2016. It took some time for him to get to the NHL after being drafted, but he’s quickly turned into one of the best offensive defencemen in the game.
From a statistical perspective, this may be the best comparable on this list so far when it comes to Parekh. Fox had a solid yet not spectacular rookie campaign before taking home the Norris the very next season, one in which he had 47 points in 55 outings.
Evan Bouchard
- Drafted: 10th overall in 2018
- Rookie season: 81 GP, 12 G, 31 A, 43 PTS
There is widespread debate over whether or not Evan Bouchard is a true number-one defenceman, but you won’t hear anyone argue about his offensive abilities. The 25-year-old put up 82 points in 2023-24 and has 81 career playoff points in 75 games.
Bouchard is an entirely different player than Parekh, as a big part of his offence comes from his booming shot. Parekh, on the other hand, can create offence largely due to his mobility. Either way, the offensive totals of Bouchard over the years also seem like a fair comparable for Parekh.
Erik Karlsson
- Drafted: 15th overall in 2008
- Rookie season: 60 GP, 5 G, 21 A, 26 PTS
Now that we’ve got the younger guys out of the way, let’s take a look at one of the best offensive defencemen all time in Erik Karlsson. The three-time Norris Trophy winner serves as a great reminder that the NHL can be an adjustment period, as it wasn’t until his third season that he began to produce mindboggling numbers.
While Karlsson’s game hasn’t aged as gracefully as fans had hoped, he’s only three seasons removed from the first and only 100-point season of his career. It’s far too much to expect Parekh to put up the same numbers Karlsson has over the course of his 1,084 games, though it is worth noting that the two have been compared in the past.
Roman Josi
- Drafted: 38th overall in 2008
- Rookie season: 52 GP, 5 G, 11 A, 16 PTS
Roman Josi’s offensive game has never hit the same highs as Karlsson’s, but he’s still had some incredible seasons, including a career-best 96 points in 2021-22. The 35-year-old has over 700 points through his 962-game career to date.
Josi failed to surpass the 20-point barrier in his first two seasons, although he played far less than 82 games in either. The 2013-14 campaign, his third as an NHLer, saw him hit 40 points for the first time, and he’s taken off ever since.
One important thing to note when it comes to Karlsson and Josi’s low outputs through their first two NHL seasons was that league scoring was down. It’s been on a steady increase in recent years, allowing for players such as Makar, Hughes, Fox, and Bouchard to have impressive rookie totals.
Should Parekh see playoff time in his rookie season, there’s plenty of reason to believe he can put up similar totals to the likes of Fox and Bouchard, though there is zero reason to panic if he doesn’t. He’s still very young and is years away from entering what will be considered the prime of his career.