Blues Need Him Badly

Pictured to the left is not my garden despite my best efforts outside all day today. What you see are The Butchart Gardens in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, and the 55-acre parcel of land that was once a limestone quarry today blooms with amazing colours and fragrances that has taken over a century to cultivate. My garden, on the other hand, has some nice colours, but it's nowhere close to what you see above. This comparison relates to hockey when one realizes that the St. Louis Blues could be in big trouble when they start their series against the juggernaut Colorado Avalanche.

It was announced today that the Blues potentially could be without Nathan Walker, Jake Walman, and David Perron as all three players have landed on the NHL COVID Protocol list, putting their participation in the series with Colorado in serious jeopardy if they have tested positive for the virus.

While Walker and Walman aren't huge pieces of the Blues' offence, David Perron certainly is, and his play in the absence of Vladimir Tarasenko has kept the Blues rolling without their star winger. Perron's 19 goals and 39 assists were just two points back of his total last year and eight points off his best total ever of 66 points in 2017-18 with the Vegas Golden Knights, so it's pretty clear that Perron was having a career season after scoring 58 points in 56 games this season.

That's all in limbo at this point as Perron now has to test negative twice within a 24-hour period in order to escape the COVID Protocol list and be eligible for Monday's opening game in Denver. With Tarasenko's participation still in question following a lower-body injury that limited him to just 24 games this season, having the Blues go in to Denver to play the President's Trophy winners without their top-two wingers seems like a recipe for disaster.

If you're keeping track of the stats above, Perron played in every game for the Blues this season, meaning he helped the Blues go 3-5-0 against the Avalanche. There's some hope there if you're a Blues fan because Perron's inclusion gives the Blues some key firepower in getting to Avalanche netminder Philipp Grubauer. Perron helped the Blues' power-play to being sixth-best in the league at 23.2%, and we know that playoff series can be won or lost on special teams if defence wins championships.

What makes Perron's addition to the NHL's COVID list more concerning is that injury reports at this time of year are virtually classified by teams, and the Blues have already travelled to Denver as per their social media feeds. Not one person from the St. Louis Blues confirmed Perron's attendance on the plane, and it would seem that Perron would likely still be in St. Louis awaiting his test results to be returned with a chartered plane on standy-by if his tests return negative.

The other concern is that the NHL has been quietly pointing to the number of teams and players that have been vaccinated so that the Stanley Cup Playoffs can get underway, yet Jake Walman, mentioned above, tested positive for COVID-19 despite having been vaccinated. Again, with all information surrounding vaccinations virtually classified, no one will say when Walman received a vaccination or whether he's fully vaccinated, but it's clear that the vaccine hadn't fully protected him from the strain of COVID-19 he now has.
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With Perron being identified a day later as being on the NHL's COVID list, one might assume there could be spread within the locker room. The hope is that Perron's name was added to the list for contact tracing purposes only, but one can't be too careful when it comes to taking this virus lightly, especially when travelling by airplane and being in close quarters with others.

Perron had two goals and seven points in those eight games against the Avalanche this season, and his work on the top line beside Ryan O'Reilly involved matching up against Nathan MacKinnon's line on most nights. Perron seems to have thrived in his top-line role with Tarasenko being out, and Perron brings a little bit of everything to the game when he's on the ice: scoring, good work along the boards, reliable defensive awareness, and a touch of physical play. The Blues need all of that to keep the Avalanche at bay, so there's hope Perron will be in the lineup come Monday night.

If this series is as lopsided as Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic has predicted, Perron's absense would be a huge blow to St. Louis' chances at any sort of upset. The Denver Post's four writers have predicted this series being over in five games.

"We're going to beat them," Blues captain, Ryan O'Reilly, told reporters on a Zoom conference last week. It's nice to see that confidence that O'Reilly has in himself and his team, I'd say the reality of starting the playoffs without David Perron makes that proclamation a lot harder considering all that Perron has done for the Blues this season.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!