Already? David Perron is a question mark for game one against Avalanche

You could be forgiven for looking forward to tomorrow night’s season opener against the Avalanche. It’s been a while since the Avs swept the Blues out of the playoffs, so circling a revenge date on your calendar makes sense. You get to see the new players, Jake Neighbours’ debut, and hopefully the continuation of David Perron’s points tear from last season. After all, COVID-19 robbed us all of seeing how the Blues would fare against the Avalanche in the playoffs with Perron. We should at least have an opportunity to see them play against Colorado with Perron healthy and skating.

After all, the Blues even mic’d him up at their team practice sessions in Vail!

Hold your horses everyone. Turns out that the Blues don’t even have to wait for their season to start before they get a deflating injury.

That little tiny asterisk draws your eye down to a very unexpected, and unfortunate, phrase: “Perron not skating.”

In Berube’s post-skate interview session, he had this to say when asked about Perron’s status: it was “more maintenance than anything.” Will he be skating tomorrow? The concept of a maintenance day usually means that the player getting the day off will be fine for puck drop. Berube’s response when asked if Perron was “up in the air?” for tomorrow? It was a yes.

This isn’t the start that the Blues need for a season where they’re keeping pace with some of the most difficult to play against teams in the league.

Colton Parayko’s response to the situation were a cornucopia of stock “one of our best players is hurt” responses, but he does raise a good point.

The guy given the biggest opportunity to step up, according to today’s practice lines, is Klim Kostin. Kostin was skating on the top line with Brandon Saad and Ryan O’Reilly. If Berube was looking for size to counter speed tomorrow night, he just might be on to something.