The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jim Thomas took note of comments made by new Red Wings forward David Perron regarding the theory that the St. Louis Blues’ decision to sign former Wings defenseman Nick Leddy to a contract extension took them out of the running to keep Perron, who was skating with the Blues for the third time:
This latest four-year stay was Perron’s third stint with the Blues, leaving previously via trade to Edmonton and after a second stint here, to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft. Strangely, the Detroit deal was the first contract he has signed with a team other than the Blues. In his other stops — Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Vegas — he had always been working under a contract signed when he was a Blue.
“He’s always gonna be known as a great Blue and someone that this organization is gonna hold fondly well past his retirement,” [Blues GM Doug] Armstrong said. “Which I think is a long way away.”
On his conference call, Perron was asked by the Post-Dispatch if the Blues’ salary-cap constraints kept him from re-signing with them.
“That’s not for me,” Perron said. “That question, you can ask the other guy (the Blues). We were trying to make it work for a while with the Blues, but it didn’t work out. I’m excited to be with the Red Wings. I had several options that I was bouncing around in my head with my agent, my family and everyone. But the Red Wings are a team, obviously with some of the signings that happened today, too, I think they’re ready to take the next step in their evolution as a team. And I wanted to be a part of that.”
Perron joins a Detroit roster that already includes former Blues Robby Fabbri, Ville Husso, Oskar Sundqvist and Jake Walman.
“Those are guys I exchanged text messages (with) already,” Perron said. “Some of us won together there in St. Louis and would like to kind of bring some of that success to Detroit.”