“I felt like every game I felt more comfortable and like more as an NHL player. And, you know, getting those hard situations with Blake and Backs, playing against, you know, getting on the ice, two minutes left in the game, playing against the top lines from the other team, It kind of shows that the coach believes in me and trusts me when he puts me on. And I think they kind of become part of my identity now to be that good defensive forward. But also, like I said, I want to work hard during the summer that I can also bring more offence and create more offensively, even if I get time on power play it would be great. But like I said, PK, play responsible hockey, and it’s a player who the coach can trust.”

“Ever since I got here, all you hear about outside of the rink is his development. Is he producing points and all this stuff? It’s hard as a young guy in this league, especially as a defenceman. I’m not saying forward’s easier, goalie’s easier. That stuff hits position-wise. But learning how to play defence in this league is really hard. You’ve got to go up against guys like him [gestures to Jonathan Huberdeau] on a nightly basis who play. You know, Zayne’s going to have to play at some point 20 to 25 minutes a night against the best lines. And I think over this past couple games, he’s shown he can handle that. And he’s done a good job defending, which I think a lot of people need to understand how hard that is as a 20-year-old offensive defenceman, is that he’s defending really well. He’s coming on the right side of the match-ups. He’s going against guys like MacKinnon, closing gaps, having good sticks, boxing out, making plays out of the D zone, hard plays, crisp plays. And he’s come a long way. And you can talk about the offensive side. You saw that last night. That’s who he is. That’s Zayne Parekh. But the player that he’s going to be is the guy that can defend in all situations for 25 minutes a night. And I think you’re kind of getting glimpses of that now. And once he gets confident and in those scenarios where he’s going to make mistakes, but that was the same process that I had to go through and every D-man has to go through, is to learn you’re going to get burned once or twice, but you have to get burned in order to understand that those situations come up and how to deal with them. He’s going to be a really good player for a long time. It’s cool being able to play with him too.”

“I don’t know, just some more ice time for sure. And Husk trust me more, I feel like. And I’ve played with Frosty [Morgan Frost] and Matty [Matt Coronato] a lot. That was a good line and we produced a lot. I don’t know, I probably wasn’t ready for NHL at beginning of the year. And when I play in the AHL for the games, that helps me to play my best.”