David Perron Participates In Contact Drills

The St. Louis Blues put together a valiant effort on Saturday night in their shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild.

The Blues clearly matched the Wild throughout the game, but came up short once it came to shootouts.  The Wild seemed to have a distinctive advantage in the penalty shots, being able to turn to a number of goal scorers to take the shots while the Blues asked defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk to go third in the shootout.  

Good news for Blues fans may be coming.  The Blues may get significantly better in shootouts soon because electric forward David Perron has taken another step closer to returning to the ice for good. 

Perron shed his no-contact, red jersey on Friday and participated in all contact drills for the first time since suffering a concussion early last season. 

The 23 year old forward, who has an uncanny play-making ability and knack for the puck, felt good about how his first "real" practice went. 

"I feel good. I feel that it was time to take that step.  It's just another step, obviously. I'm just going to keep moving forward, which I've been doing. There's still more steps to go, obviously. It's kind of like getting my conditioning up with the guys and being just a player instead of being the guy you can't do anything with."

"I'm a long ways from where I was when I started skating. There's still a ways to go, but we move forward."

There is no timetable at this point for when Perron may return, but the fact that he is slowly inching closer surely is good news for a team that could use a an offensive shot in the arm, especially when it comes to shootouts.  

Sources:

• David Perron quote
• Box Score - Minnesota Wild 3 St. Louis Blues 2 (shootouts)