Perron: Oilers are 'not that far off'

David Perron is about to play his first game back in St. Louis since being acquired by Craig MacTavish's Edmonton Oilers. As dismal a campaign as the Oilers have endured in many respects - while his former team has only risen in NHL prominence - Perron remains optimistic.

“It would be nice to be part of a run like (St. Louis’s) but it’s the business of the league,” he said, as relayed via The Edmonton Sun. “We’re in the NHL getting paid, maybe more money than we should, to be doing something we love. So I’m going to take every single day like I did with the Blues, try to have fun, get better and try to bring some success here so we can match them in a couple of years.

“The way we’ve played lately we’ve shown we’re not that far off. The crazy thing is, we don’t know where we’re going to be in two years; we could be right with them, or maybe ahead.

“There are three or four guys here that … I haven’t seen too many players like that. It’s fun to be playing with them.”

The sentiment toward Perron has been almost universally effusive praise since his arrival in Edmonton and perhaps coach Dallas Eakins sums it up best here, albeit with an odd choice of terminology.

“He’s definitely a guy that we needed in our organization,” said Eakins. “As soon as you get enough of those guys it infests your whole team. We’ve been slowly adding more players of that ilk.”

Don't call the exterminator. This is the good kind of infestation...

Source: Robert Tychkowski, Edmonton Sun