Patrik Berglund agrees with being benched.

If you’re on Blues Twitter, you should be familiar with the ire thrown Patrik Berglund’s direction. He is paid a lot of money ($3,850,000) for a lot of time (through the 2021-2022 season).

Typing that felt weird. I will be 40 by the time Berglund’s contract is up.

That term plus that amount leads fans to expect a level of production that Berglund doesn’t regularly reach. So far this season, since coming back from a shoulder injury, he has eight goals and six assists in 40 games. That is not production that warrants his contract. Last season he had a career high 23 goals and 11 assists in 82 games. That is still probably not enough production to warrant a contract that long and with a modified no trade clause.

He has been frustrating this season, and Wednesday night he got benched. Berglund watched the Blues 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings from the press box, and he accepted his fate. Berglund said that he “hasn’t been good enough and something had to happen. So it’s what it is.”

“The only thing I can do is work harder and be ready when we get the chance next time,” Berglund said. “All that matters now is to get points, win games. You know, it was a really good feeling to see the boys, the way they fought through that (Detroit) game and got those two very important points.”

Message received for the big bodied forward? We’ll hopefully see the next time that he dresses. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that he’s been holding back his play due to his shoulder, which is honestly a whole ‘nother issue altogether. Berglund isn’t a useless player - far from it, when he throws his weight around - but his play this season has been disappointing and it took a seven game losing streak to finally get him benched to reflect on it.