Nashville Predators’ Juuso Parssinen, who has failed to replicate last season’s level of play after recovering from an injury, has been sent to Milwaukee, where he will get more ice time and the chance to play himself back to Nashville.

-- Photo By Karl B Deblaker | Ap

Although it’s still relatively early in Andrew Brunette’s coaching career, he’s clearly well on his way to becoming someone who is considered a players’ coach. After playing more than 1,100 NHL games, he transitioned to the coaching side of the business and is in his second season as a head coach, his first with the Predators.

During his playing career, Brunette was coached by some of the bigger names, Barry Trotz, Jacques Lemaire and Joel Quenneville, to name a few. As he continues to evolve as a coach, he has already displayed a willingness to stick up for his players. Case in point, his defense of Juuso Parssinen after the Predators sent the talented Finn back to Milwaukee of the American Hockey League.

Last season, Parssinen earned his first-ever promotion to the NHL. He was a noticeable presence on the ice, using a combination of skill and size to quickly turn heads for all the right reasons.

The 6-foot-3, 211-pound Parssinen was a late pick, 210th overall in 2019, and had many in the NHL wondering how they missed this guy who was playing more like a first-round pick rather than a player who only had seven players selected after him in that draft.

After sustaining an upper-body injury that saw him miss 23 games last season, Parssinen hasn’t returned to his pre-injury form. This season has seen Parssinen moved up and down the lineup, healthy scratched a couple of times and relegated back to the AHL. He just hasn’t been able to find any rhythm to his game.

Rather than putting it on the player, Brunette took the blame.

“I’m failing him a little bit that it’s hard to get him going up here,” Brunette says. “We know he’s a much better player than he’s showing us right now. He probably hates to hear it, but it’s probably the best for his game.”

A quick glance at Parssinen’s numbers might be misleading. This season, he has eight goals and four assists in 44 games played after scoring six and picking up 19 assists in 45 games in 2022-23. But of his eight goals this campaign, three have come with the opponents’ net empty.

But Parssinen isn’t driving play this season, as the big center showed he could do last season.

Due to being waiver exempt, Parssinen did not have to go through the waiver process to be sent to Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, Parssinen will be given plenty of ice time – Brunette hinted at 20 minutes per game – as well as time on the Admirals’ power play. There, he hopes that Parssinen will regain the confidence he seems to be lacking at the NHL level right now.

Still on his three-year, entry-level deal, the pocketbook hit Parssinen takes while playing in the minors is significant. His salary at the NHL level is $850,833 per season and just $70,000 in the AHL, so there is a financial incentive to get back to Nashville.

In addition to the financial impact, the posh travel NHLers enjoy – chartered airplanes and five-star hotels – are much different from what players in the minors experience.

Brunette channeled his inner Ted Lasso a little when talking about the 22-year-old Parssinen.

“We believe in the player, and I believe in the player,” he said. “When we get him (back), we know he’ll be a better player.”

Brunette knows success as a player can sometimes be fleeting and the confidence needed to succeed can come and go, but he is deflecting the attention away from Parssinen and onto himself so the player can, to borrow a phrase from noted sports fan Taylor Swift – just play, play, play, play, play.

“You take pride in putting your players in positions to succeed and helping them become the best versions of themselves. We’ve tried, kind of wit’s end a little bit how to get him going. I take that pretty personally too because I try to get the best out of my guys.”

Many eyes will be on Parssinen in Milwaukee. The organization’s management, coaching staff and scouts will be anxious to see not only what Parssinen can do on the ice, but how he carries himself off it – all the little things that get noticed for good or bad.

And it isn’t just the Predators who will be keeping eyes on Parssinen. Other organizations, especially with the trade deadline looming, may be checking in with Trotz to see if Parssinen becomes available. With the talent Parssinen has, odds are very slim that he’d be moved, though.

The Predators just need to get him back to playing the game that they know he is capable of. Once that happens, he will be on a plane back to Nashville pretty quickly.