Blues at Stars Round Two, Game Four Preview: David Perron doesn’t like line adjustments

This should go over well, especially when it’s said by a leading regular season scorer who hasn’t lit the lamp much during the postseason. David Perron doesn’t like line shuffling.

“Hopefully we don’t turn into ‘Hitch’ daily with a line update where we talk about a new line and it’s going to be the whole solution of our problems.”

While I do appreciate a good “Ken Hitchcock Line Blender” dig, and I understand where Perron is uncomfortable going from right to left wing, the Blues have been all over the place these playoffs. I’d go through Twitter and pull every tweet I’ve seen since April 10th where someone said something along the lines of “the Blues aren’t being consistent” or “_______ hasn’t seen their best game yet,” but I have other things to do today and I don’t feel like ignoring all of my job responsibilities entirely.

When asked why he and others prefer consistency, Perron has a good answer:

“Because it puts the onus on the players to be better. If you keep changing the lines, I feel like you just wait for the next opportunity for the line change to get a spark from the team.

“Or when it’s been pretty stable like it’s been all year, it’s up to the players to do their job and you want to be the guy that can make a difference. We’ve had guys step up at different times in the season.”

The issue is that it’s a playoff series, not an entire season, so time’s of the essence here. A coach can’t realistically wait three games for a guy to realize he has to step up, so he has to do the next best thing.

Some games the Blues have looked flat, and a quick adjustment has put gas in the tank. The only game these playoffs where we’ve seen the Blues play close to 60 minutes of hockey that’s been good enough was game six against Winnipeg, and even then, at the end, it could’ve been less shaky.

Luckily, the Blues got a solid on Monday night from Esa Lindell and his horrible case of disintegrating bone syndrome. There’s drawing a penalty and then there’s diving. Someone needs to explain the difference to him.

Or not, because him dropping on Maroon is why the Blues have walked away with a 2-1 series lead.

Here’s hoping that the defense is more present tonight and that we don’t get another see-saw match. The game doesn’t start until 8:30 and I’m sure that most of us don’t need an elevated heart rate that close to bedtime.