David Perron and the St. Louis Blues are red-hot. Perron has four goals in the last six games—three of them coming in this weekend's victories over the Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks. The Blues have climbed to No. 3 in the NHL.com power rankings.
Of course, Perron doesn’t think he’s playing his best yet. That’s expected. Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said Perron, who is plus-11 with 10 goals and 24 points, is getting goals because he’s getting into “the dirty areas.”
“He’s being rewarded for going there," Hitchcock said. “He’s crashing the net, he’s slicing into the net, he’s taking it off the goal line to the net. He’s got great hands, and the biggest thing for me, he’s going into the hard areas to score goals. That’s confidence, that’s competitiveness—whatever you want to call it. But that’s what's impressive.”
The Blues entered the weekend with the NHL’s best home record and improved that mark to 24-3-4. Saturday night’s contest drew more than 19,000 for the 17th home sellout of the season.
“Our fans, even last year and the year before, have been great for us,” Perron told me Saturday. “We got a goal early on, and the fans got on their feet. That’s always nice, and you feed off that energy. We know they’re there, and that’s why we’re doing our best out there to get points and get wins.”
Despite the success at home, though, Hitchcock thinks the team is playing its best hockey away from Scottrade Center.
“We’ve played, to be honest with you, better on the road for the first half of games,” he told me. “We’ve played much better on the road—much harder, much more passionate. But we haven’t gotten rewarded, so we’ve got discouraged. Now, we’re staying with it a little longer on the road, and we’re kind of getting stronger as the games go on at home.”
After Colorado took an early 1-0 lead on Saturday, Perron scored twice in a row to give St. Louis a 2-1 lead. The Avalanche, seeded 10th in the Western Conference, tied things up just before the end of the first period.
The 2-2 scored remained unchanged until overtime, when the Blues won it on a goal originally given to Patrik Berglund, but Carlo Colaiacovo was given credit for the score on a deflection. Colaiacovo said the puck may have glanced off his arm, but there were questions about that.
All-Star Brian Elliott got the start in net on Saturday, but the Blues went to Jaroslav Halak on Sunday, and he was superb. Halak stopped all 25 shots for his sixth shutout of the season and extended the team’s shutout streak in St. Louis against the Sharks to 124 minutes, 56 seconds.
The Blues have the second-best record in the Western Conference, but are seeded fourth behind division leaders Detroit, Vancouver, and San Jose. A convincing win over San Jose and the continued domination of the Sharks prove that St. Louis can hang with the big boys.
Sunday’s game marked the return of center Andy McDonald, who has missed 51 games because of an early-season concussion. His introduction drew a huge ovation from the 18,447 in attendance.
“I wasn’t really expecting that,” McDonald told me after the game. “The fans have just been great, a lot of messages and showing a lot of support. It means a lot. It’s great to play again, especially the first game back in front of our home fans.”
McDonald’s teammates were also excited to have him back on the ice.
“I don’t even know where to start. Mac is such an influence on the ice,” “Pietrangelo said. “You could stand here all day and talk about how great Mac is. He’s just another threat. You know how dangerous he is. He’s been like that his whole career. He hasn’t played in four months, and it’s like he hasn’t missed a beat.”
Three overlapping Sharks penalties led to more than four power-play minutes for the Blues, and the team finally converted on a blistering wrister from Alex Pietrangelo with 4:57 remaining in the first period. McDonald, who was the third star of the game, got an assist on the goal, along with T.J. Oshie.
A Perron power-play goal put the Blues up 2-0 as the team was very patient with a 5-on-3 advantage, waiting for the right opportunity. After Pietrangelo’s shot was deflected by David Backes, Perron slapped in the rebound. It was the team’s fourth power-play goal of the weekend. An empty-netter by Pietrangelo with 5.9 seconds remaining sealed the win. Pietrangelo joked that he wasn’t going to shoot it until he heard Backes yell, “Shoot.”
As well as the Blues are playing now, Hitchcock isn’t ready to ease up on his players. When asked if he’d let the guys “have fun” in practice, he simply answered, “Talk to me in June.”
We will.
