ST. LOUIS _ What did Blues forward David Perron learn from playing in the Stanley Cup Final last season for Vegas? He learned who his friends are.
"You learn who your true friends are because you don't answer their texts for two weeks," Perron said Friday. "And if they still talk to you, you know they're your real friends."
The Blues open the Stanley Cup Final on Monday in Boston and it will be a new experience for almost all of them. Perron is the only player who has played in a game for the Blues this postseason to have played in a Stanley Cup Final game. (Forward Jordan Nolan, who spent most of the season with San Antonio and is with the team now, has played in two finals.) Coach Craig Berube got to the final with Washington in 1997-98 and forward Oskar Sundqvist watched the Penguins win two Stanley Cups from the press box, being on the roster but never getting in a game in the Final.
So this is a not team for which this will be a been-there, done-that experience.
"It never hurts (to have that experience)," Berube said, "but it is what it is. We can't change that. That's nothing I'm really too worried about at all."
Perron played 10 seasons in the NHL without going to the Stanley Cup, and now he's going for the second year in a row.
"I can't believe it," he said. " I'm very fortunate. Obviously I'd like to change the result from last year."
The Golden Knights lost in five games to the Washington Capitals in the final last season, ending a storybook season for the expansion team. Perron sat out Game 4.
"It was a different run for me last year because I came back from injuries," he recalled. "It was tough because obviously you guys know what I've been going through in my career (with concussions). Not that it was that, but it was kind of related. I'd wake up the next day and I kind of wasn't feeling good every single game. It's tough. It's tough to get energized for another game when you're not feeling good. I think this year I'm feeling good and it's a lot more fun to come to the rink. Not that it wasn't. It was a blast. It was the best year of my life at the time, but it certainly was a different feeling. It was tough to have an impact on games as much as I had at times in the regular season last year. I'm just glad it's different this year."
Perron doesn't think he needs to pass much wisdom along.
"These guys are ready," he said. "For sure, the guys that have been working for it for a long time, they're the ones that are the most ready. They're going to be the ones driving the bus and that's definitely what we need. I think for the young guys, just do as good a job as you can and stay in the moment, not worry about family, all that stuff. It's going to take care of itself at the end of the day. The less distractions that we have, the better we can play. I don't really have much to say other than we have to be ready from the start and turn the page, not worry about what we've done already."
Sundqvist was a healthy scratch in the finals when the Penguins won in 2016 and 2017. He said he was the next man up in case of an injury, but ultimately wasn't needed.
"They had a bunch of injuries, but you play through a lot in the playoffs," he said. "The chance never came. ... It's way more fun now. It's been a lot of fun these playoffs. I think our whole group has had a lot of fun together. We need to continue to have fun and don't get distracted by anything."
As for Berube, he broke in with Philadelphia in 1986-87 but didn't get in any games when they lost to Edmonton in the final. He got back to the final late in his career in 1998 with Washington. The Capitals were swept by Detroit that season.
"It's a great experience throughout the whole playoffs," he said, "and it gets ramped up more and more as you go along and then you're in the finals. It's a great feeling to be part of it for sure. ... The one with Washington was a lot of fun. I don't think it was expected we'd get there. We played well and our goalie (Olaf Kolzig) played well and we ended up in the finals against Detroit. We didn't do very well in the finals. It was fun. It was a great experience."
And the lesson he learned? Getting that far is not easy, and he thinks this Blues team is equipped to deal with that.
"It is a grind," he said. "It's tough. And that's why it's so important to use everybody. You've got to have depth. That's a big thing. I think our depth has carried us, I really do. I've said this for quite some time, that we have good depth on this hockey team, on the back end and upfront and we've used it. I believe it's one of the big reasons we're here."
