FanHouse DavidPerron

Let there be no question that the St. Louis Blues have character. They have guts. They have fire. Oh, and they have some great young players who will only get better as the years go by.

Trailing 2-0 in the game and 3-0 in the series, the Blues showed zero quit, rallying to tie the score on two second-period goals, and then getting some great goaltending from Chris Mason, who dueled with Roberto Luongo through a scoreless third period. That duel continued deep into overtime, before Alex Burrows scored his second of the game to eliminate St. Louis, 3-2.

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Exactly 1,230 regular season games have been played. We're down to the best eight teams in each conference. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Wednesday night with four series lid-lifters.

The Western Conference is home to the league's best team (San Jose), the defending champion (Detroit), and the two most intriguing Cinderella stories in the league (St. Louis and Columbus). Can Cinderella put off the stroke of midnight, or will an established power advance their way to the Finals?

Entering the 2008-09 season, not much was expected from the St. Louis Blues. Most people recognized their talented young core, but few, if any, were predicting a trip to the playoffs. With just 13 games remaining on their schedule, the Blues enter Tuesday's game in Edmonton just two points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and have an opportunity to move into a tie for the No. 8 spot with a win (and a Dallas loss). So, how did they get here?

It's great to see quality NHL action return to Chicago after years of disappointing hockey, and man, what a team the windy city has. With their 4-1 win in Minnesota on Sunday, the Blackhawks picked up their ninth straight victory, improving their record to 20-6-7, good enough for the fifth best record in the league.

Chicago received a four-point performance from Dustin Byfuglien, who scored a pair of goals in the first period and also added a pair of assists later in the game, as the Blackhawks dominated Minnesota. Cristobal Huet faced only 19 shots, turning away 18 of them to pick up his fifth consecutive win in goal. During his personal winning streak, Huet has allowed only four goals, posting a .967 save percentage.

Cal Clutterbuck scored Minnesota's only goal, while Martin Havlat and Kris Versteeg added tallies for the Blackhawks.

While Chicago has been reeling off win after win, the Wild have been going the opposite direction winning just two of their past 10 games.

Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn recorded his first career hat trick on Saturday night, while Carey Price stopped 31 shots, including 16 in the third period to lead the Canadien's to a 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh. With the win, Montreal moves ahead of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference standings, while the Penguins failed to win consecutive games yet again -- they haven't won two in a row since November 13-15. Just sayin'.

Kostitsyn scored a pair of goals in the first period before completing the hat trick early in the third period with a quick slap shot that beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through the five-hole.

Following Kostitsyn's goal, Price turned into a brick wall, as the Penguins had a trio of power plays in the final period, and peppered the Montreal netminder. Of course, if you're Pittsburgh, you have to be a tad frustrated you failed to convert on five power plays, after going 0-for-5 one night ago in New Jersey. How a power play that features Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Petr Sykora and Ryan Whitney, among others, can consistently have so many 0-for-5 and 0-for-6 nights seems to defy all logic. Yet, here we are.

Crosby and Pascal Dupuis each finished with a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh.

It's been a rough season for the St. Louis Blues, a young team that's been decimated by injuries --ranging from the ridiculous, to the absurd -- so you'll have to excuse head coach Andy Murray if he's just a tad bit annoyed following 6-3 losses at home.

After Blake Wheeler and the Bruins completed their goal-scoring assault on Sunday, the St. Louis bench boss decided to go down the roster -- at least that's the way it seemed -- and point out the players who didn't exactly put on a strong showing against the top team in the Eastern Conference. Some guys played so poorly -- in his eyes -- that he mentioned them twice. And poor David Perron, I think that may have been the worst call-out of the bunch.

Jeremy Rutherford from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has the post-game carnage:

"I didn't think (Patrik) Berglund was good, I didn't think (David) Perron was good, I didn't think (Keith) Tkachuk was good ... I didn't think (Brad) Boyes was good," Murray said. "I thought (David) Backes was all right." "I expect Jeff Woywitka to be a lot better than he was today," he continued. "David Perron ... where's he? Berglund, I expect him to be better. Am I being a little hard on them here? That's just the way that it is."

Playing in his first game against his former team, St. Louis goalie Chris Mason was absolutely sensational on Tuesday, stopping 47 shots in regulation and overtime, not to mention two additional shots in a shootout, as a depleted Blues team walked out of Nashville with a 1-0 shootout win.

David Perron and Brad Boyes scored for St. Louis in the shootout, while Rich Peverley and Ville Koistinen came up short for the Predators.

The story of the night was Mason, who was traded by Nashville on June 20, in exchange for a fourth-round pick. The 32-year old goalie was a brick wall in net, as Nashville held a commanding 47-17 edge in the shots department. His best performance of the evening had to be the overtime period, as he turned aside nine shots as Nashville peppered him with shots on a 4-on-3 man advantage, following a questionable penalty call on Blues defenseman Barret Jackman.

The Blues have now picked up points in four consecutive games, after losing eight of their previous nine.

This is one in a series of profiles of the International Scouting Service's 2007 Top 15 NHL Draft Prospects, and relies heavily on the 2007 NHL Entry Draft Media Guide. Check back often leading up to the June 22 Entry Draft for more profiles and draft coverage and analysis.

Name: David Perron
Team/League: Lewiston/QMJHL
Vitals: 6'0", 180 pounds, left wing, shoots right
Born: May 28, 1988 in Sherbrooke, Quebec

The unimportant stuff: Perron is fundamentally sound, hard working and smart defensively. He led all rookies in The Q in goals and was second in points during the regular season.

The important stuff: "Perry," as he has been creatively nicknamed, wears the number 39 because "it was his number in training camp." Deep.... if he could invite any three people to dinner, he'd pick Alexei Kovalev (pictured, with two of the people he'd invite to dinner -- sorry, David, you missed the cut), Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky.... speaking of Kovalev, Perron patterns his game after the Russian, who he lists as his favorite player, which means either he's not doing a great job of emulating his idol or the scouting report is amiss because I can't recall the last time I read "Alexei Kovalev" and "hard working" in the same paragraph... ... his favorite musical group is Green Day and his favorite actor is Adam Sandler, which is odd as neither has been any good since before Perron was a teenager...

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match: Perron would be a good fit in St. Louis, Montreal (Perron's favorite team) could use some more grit up front, and the 'Canes could use a left wing with upside (or a pulse) somewhere in the organization. The winner? Perron would be a reach for the Blues at #9 and I doubt the Habs would want anything to do with a guy who so openly idolizes Kovalev, so welcome to Raleigh -- the Sherbrooke of the South.