Perron turnaround sparking improvement with Blues

BOSTON -- It's an open question whether this can all be traced back to the scratch. It might be too tidy, too pat, too easy, to assume that the seat David Perron took in the press box on Dec. 9 for the St. Louis Blues' game against the Vancouver Canucks can be connected all the way to the offensive roll that Perron is riding now.

But what is indisputably true is that in the context of being scratched, Perron felt he'd found an opening to talk to Blues coach Craig Berube, to explain how his role and his hockey life had opened up with the Vegas Golden Knights last season, to see if they could approximate that in St. Louis and, in doing that, perhaps approximate his success.
Whatever it was, it has worked.
In his first game back after being scratched, Perron -- who admitted he was shaken by Berube's decision -- responded by scoring two goals. After going without a point in three of the next four games, Perron kicked off a 13-game point streak with a goal and an assist against the Calgary Flames on Dec. 22. The streak continued with an assist on Ryan O'Reilly's goal at 4:23 of the second period in
the Blues' 5-2 loss
to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Thursday.
Perron has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) during the streak, giving him 35 points (17 goals, 18 assists) in 45 games. His average ice time has risen to 19:50 from 15:53 before the scratch. With the assist Thursday, Perron became the eighth different Blues player to have a point in at least 13 consecutive games.
"To be honest, I think the best thing that I bring out of that is I had some really good conversation with [Berube] and kind of explained when I went through last year the role I had," Perron said. "How the importance of feeling important on a team, your level of play will rise to the right level, and he's given me that opportunity."

Not that it was an easy conversation to have.
"I think it's the first time I had a conversation like that with a coach," the 30-year-old said. "When you're younger you don't feel like you should have those and it's probably true. But it was the first time that I [explained], hey, here's what happened last year and it was the first time I had the role that I had and we had success, not only individually as guys, but as a team and it kind of opened my eyes up.
"Even my own eyes were opened that last year by so many things that went right. It gives you confidence that you know you can do it."
After being left unprotected by St. Louis and claimed by Vegas in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, Perron had a season with the Golden Knights that gave him the sense he could be more than he had been, on a team discovering that just about every player could be more than he had been.
Of late, Perron has been playing left wing alongside O'Reilly, with Zach Sanford or Alexander Steen on the right wing. And it has worked, both as that line has gotten the difficult defensive assignments and at the other end of the ice, where Perron and O'Reilly have developed impressive chemistry.
"They work really well in the corners together and they have real good chemistry in the offensive zone," said Berube, who took over as coach on Nov. 20 after the Blues fired Mike Yeo. "They support each other and they both hang onto the puck and they found some chemistry and it's going well for them."

Just as it has been going better for the Blues lately.
St. Louis is 4-2-1 in its last six games, lifting the Blues (20-21-5) from last place in the Western Conference on Jan. 5 to four points out of the second wild card spot into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Perron has been instrumental in that rise.
"Just a confident player more than anything," Berube said. "I think he's a skilled guy. He's got real good vision and puck skills, but he's real confident right now. He's feeling good with the puck and when he gets the puck on his tape, he hangs onto it and makes plays and he's really strong on it."
Some of that confidence has come from those talks between player and coach, when Perron got to express himself -- and feel that he'd been heard -- even as he felt "blind-sided" by the scratch itself. He hadn't felt the situation was as dire as Berube did, a few bad penalties and a few poor decisions notwithstanding.
"The only reason I brought this up to him is I think coaches a lot of times they have so much on their plate to figure out their own teams, so they don't look around the League as much," said Perron, who has 479 points (192 goals, 287 points) in 767 NHL games during 12 seasons with the Blues, Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Ducks and Golden Knights. "And I wanted to bring this up to him, kind of like, here was my role last year. Did everything go perfect? Absolutely not, but if you want me to be playing at a [certain] level, I think I can do it with this situation."
Perron had talked to forward Jonathan Marchessault about what he had been able to do when suddenly given opportunities with the Florida Panthers and then the Golden Knights, and how he'd risen to the occasion and succeeded.
He saw the same in himself in 2017-18, when he finished with an NHL career-high 66 points (16 goals, 50 assists) in 70 games for Vegas. Perron wanted to replicate that in 2018-19, now that he was back with the Blues for a third go-round after signing a four-year, $16 million contract on July 1.
He believed that, in Berube, he had a person he could open up to, a person who would listen to him, as long as he delivered his message in a respectful way. As he said, "I felt like I could push a little bit more than usual."
The response brought even more admiration from Perron toward his coach.
"I love the guy," he said. "I think I would go through a wall for him. He's been unbelievable for us as a team. He's brought us together. He wants us to compete harder, and even going through this situation with him showed me a lot about him and how he wants everyone to be on the same level on the team. It's great to see.
"We want nothing more than [to] keep turning our season around, making the playoffs and going on a run and give him the opportunity to be our coach moving forward too. He's in a spot where we know what he's at, and he's working so hard for us too."