David Perron never said it when he was in Edmonton, and he wouldn’t say it over the phone on Monday night. So we’ll say it for him: he got the shaft in Edmonton this season. On a bad team, fired head coach Dallas Eakins never gave Perron the chance to help the cause.
As is the norm in Edmonton, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle were fitted with the only genuine NHL top-nine centre for the majority of games, as the team got off to another season-crippling start. Perron, who had tied Eberle for the team lead in goals with 28 last season, spent almost every minute of his 38 games in Edmonton this year playing next to a junior centre in Leon Draisaitl, or a 5-foot-8, barely-an-NHLer in Mark Arcobello.
It just wasn’t a place for a genuine NHL scorer to provide the production expected of him.
“I just wanted an equal opportunity to produce, and at times we only had one line in Edmonton. You definitely need more than one line in this league,” Perron said. “When you score 28 the year before, and don’t have the same opportunity, it’s frustrating. On top of that, when you don’t see the team result, that’s the biggest frustration for sure.”
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Then one morning, Perron awoke to the phone call that scoring wingers across the National Hockey League dream of. He was headed to Pittsburgh, where his centre was going to be either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.
He went from draft Lottery to winning the lottery, and has played every game on Crosby’s wing thus far as the Penguins practice in Edmonton Tuesday before Wednesday’s game against the Oilers (Live on Sportsnet at 8 p.m. ET). The game kicks off a three-game Western swing for Pittsburgh, through Calgary on Friday and the Hockey Night in Canada late game Saturday in Vancouver.
“I was extremely happy to go to a situation like that, and I’m thankful to [Oilers GM Craig MacTavish] for giving me that opportunity,” he said.
The timing, from Perron’s perspective, is impeccable. Had the opportunity to patrol Crosby’s wing come two years ago, when Perron left St. Louis for Edmonton, he may not have been ready for it. But today he is an established, 26-year-old veteran pushing 500 games and 300 points in the NHL.
Perron is the perfect example of preparation coinciding with opportunity, and if you don’t believe the stuff about him having been suffocated without a commensurate centreman in Edmonton, this may convince you: he had five goals in 38 games with Edmonton, and has six (nine points) in a dozen games with Pittsburgh.
“Until you play a few years in the league,” he began. “Before that you’re just happy to be playing. But after, you want to win. I definitely feel like it’s a situation I’ve been put in to have success, and I don’t need to be telling that to people. Everyone can see it.
“I just want to be in a spot where I’ll be able to grow with the team and hopefully, win some championships. Really, that’s all it comes down to. When you’re playing outside when you’re six years old, you’re dreaming to win a Stanley Cup. You want to have fun, sure, but it’s about winning.”
It’s hard enough on the Taylor Halls and Jordan Eberles to endure the protracted process in Edmonton, but they were drafted into it and are the faces of the franchise. Dropping in from a winning team, like the former Blue Perron did, and watching a team in dysfunction has to make a guy crazy.
He snapped earlier this season after a loss to New Jersey, when Eakins’ crew was off to a 6-12-2 start and swimming in 10 different directions while trying to execute the coach’s latest plan.
“It’s turnovers. It’s [trying] one-on-threes. It’s jumping up in the play for no reason. Something has to change,” Perron said that day. “When you are making those mistakes, something needs to happen. It’s mistakes we were doing last year and we keep talking about how much better we are this year. To me, it’s the same record we have this year as last year.”
Today, he is magnanimous towards the Oilers, yet thankful to be assessing this mess from afar.
“They want to get out if it, obviously,” he said of his former teammates. “They’re working hard, you can see it. There are holes in the lineup I don’t even need to mention, and the management is working hard at it.”
Where Perron is now, the building is done. They’re already in the new rink, and in fact, the Penguins are overdue to win their second Stanley Cup in the Crosby era.
“There’s no panic here,” Perron notes. “Our record over the last 10 games or so hasn’t been that great but you can feel there is no panic. We have the guys in the room to be successful.”
The fourth-liner who came as part of the package, Rob Klinkhammer, scored the shootout winner for Edmonton on Monday, and the first-round pick that came West will likely turn into a goalie or a defenceman for the Oilers.
Perron wishes them all well. Happily, from a distance.