2 Minute Minor
Hi Keeba!
Teams don't need toughness. Teams need skill. Plain and simple. This gets proven time and time and time and time again yet somehow people still think it's necessary to win. There's no correlation between size and winning. There's no correlation between toughness and winning. There is a distinct correlation between skill and winning.
The Blues have had a bit of a lack of drive to the front of the net early in the season. But we're seeing more of it now, and not surprisingly the goal scoring is picking up. That issue gets oversimplified as having to do with size and grit.
Brouwer and Backes are both good net-front guys, and the Blues are still showing how they are replacing that role. But I'm not convinced it has to be a big physical guy to succeed at that. Talking about Perron, he's always been feisty at winning board battles and not afraid of mixing it up around the crease. I think he's a very reasonable replacement for Brouwer, and maybe an improvement. The only caveat there is that Brouwer had a very nice playoffs, and we'd like to see that from Perron too.