The St. Louis Blues knew they needed players to step up their game when they started picking up injuries to key scorers. Nobody knew how clutch a certain forward might turn out to be.
There is normally a reason I stay out of the prediction business, whether that be regarding the St. Louis Blues or sports in general. My teams have typically all been cursed or good but fail to win the big one, etc.
Bottom line is, like many fans, I was always perpetually waiting for something bad to happen. Who knew that I’d actually start making predictions that came to pass when writing?
It was only a month ago that I put out a piece detailing David Perron and his new record. At the time, he had three overtime winners in 20 games, which was a new NHL record.
With the season being so young, I gave myself wiggle room and titled the piece “David Perron Making History, Maybe More To Come“. It did not take Perron too much longer to prove that title right.
The Blues have yet to play 40 games and Perron netted another overtime winner. This one came in the team’s 39th game, which was a 5-4 win over their division rival, the Winnipeg Jets.
With that goal, Perron scored his fourth overtime winner in one season with the Blues. No other player in team history has done that.
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As pointed out in the previous article, the NHL did not have overtime from 1942 to 1983. So, for the first 16 years of the team’s existence, games ended after 60 minutes no matter what.
Even so, in the overtime era, you had guys like Brett Hull, Bernie Federko, Brendan Shanahan, Adam Oates and many more. With all their goals and accomplishments, none scored four overtime winners in the same season. Only Perron has done that.
It’s not just team history that Perron made himself a part of either. He is only the second player in league history to score four overtime winners before his team’s 40th game. The other player is Jonathan Toews, but we won’t focus too much on that part, even though it took him 39 games as well.
Some might argue this is a minuscule record that will be forgotten soon. Maybe so, but as far as this season has gone, these have been important goals.
Through 39 games, the Blues have played in 12 overtime games so far. That means one fourth of those games were decided by David Perron.
Perron leads the team in points and is second on the squad in goals. He is also potentially on pace to set personal records with both of those categories.
The Blues needed someone to step up in the absence of Vladimir Tarasenko. Nobody expects Perron to hit 30-plus goals, but taking a big chunk off the shoulders of others is exactly what the team needed when we said they needed it to be a team effort.
Perron has never made the All-Star team. With other, bigger names having decent seasons, this will likely not be the year he changes that.
However, this might be his most deserving year yet.