David Perron on Edmonton Oilers: “it’s not the bounces, it’s about working hard”

Unlike many of the young players on the Edmonton Oilers roster, David Perron has already struggled through one rebuild. He’s been part of a team that has slowly come together as a member of the St. Louis Blues. It took that organization a while to find the right mix of tenacity and talent, but now that they have it, the Blues are among the best teams in the NHL.

Now Perron is witnessing the same thing in Edmonton. While he obviously can’t control who the team drafts and trades, the 25-year-old veteran does see one area where the Oilers can improve.

He wants to see the team angrier about their losing ways. Perron spoke to Jim Matheson of The Edmonton Journal about those feelings:

"We have to expect more out of ourselves. It’s frustrating to keep saying after games ‘if we’d just got a couple of bounces.’ I mean, every single NHL game, teams can say that… We can’t be thinking ‘jeez if we’d got the right bounce against L.A., we’d have tied the game.’ That gets old very quickly when you live that way. The good teams keep coming at you. They find a way to get the breaks and if they don’t get them one night, they get them the next night. For us, it’s not the bounces, it’s about working hard."

Coming into the season, the Oilers had some high expectations. On paper, this appeared to be a lineup that could do some damage on a nightly basis. No one was going to confuse their blue line with that of the Anaheim Ducks in 2007, but Edmonton figured to be able to score its way out of trouble.

That hasn’t been the case at all though, and the Oilers are once again competing for the No. 1 selection in the draft this summer.