According to David Perron, there were a number of times people got the wrong impression of him during his six-year stay in St. Louis.
As such, he was often misunderstood.
“I believe I was a lot actually,” Perron told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, two weeks after his trade to Edmonton.
The 26th overall pick in 2007, Perron showed dazzling skill and playmaking ability during his time with the Blues, but occasionally rubbed people the wrong way.
The Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Rutherford points to a few moments -- the “white skates” incident, calling out Doug Weight, a shooting-pucks-at-a-sporting-goods-store story -- and there was the time Perron was dispatched to the fourth line in a key playoff-clinching game against Colorado late last season.
Former Blues head coach Andy Murray chalked these incidents up to Perron being relatively inexperienced upon making the team as a 19-year-old in 2007-08.
He only played one year of major junior hockey (with QMJHL Lewiston) and, three years prior to playing his first NHL game, had been playing at the Midget B level in his hometown of Fleurimont, Quebec.
Perron also achieved success rather quickly, scoring a career-high 50 points in sophomore season (and scoring a career-high 21 goals in 2011-12, despite missing major time with a concussion.)
“I think he was misunderstood (in that) people thought he should know all of these things about being a professional. Well, he didn’t know,” Murray explained. “He had a lot to learn about being a professional.
“So what’s misunderstood for me is the fact that everybody thought he should know all these things about being a professional right away and couldn’t understand when he did some things that were a little bit different.”