Scott Perunovich

This is certainly not the rookie season Scott Perunovich was hoping for. The St. Louis Blues defenseman will undergo shoulder surgery tomorrow and is out for the remainder of the 2020-21 season. He is expected to be healthy and ready for the 2021-22 season.

It’s brutal news for the 2020 Hobey Baker Award winner, who ended up signing a two-year entry-level contract in July after three years at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Selected 45th overall in 2018, the 22-year-old defenseman has huge offensive upside and was expected to challenge for a spot on the Blues roster right away. Instead, he won’t even play his first professional game until next season.

Perunovich seemed to be on the verge of recovery when he was moved to the minors last month and then recalled to the taxi squad, but it appears as though the decision has been made for surgery over rehab. He’ll be in the mix for a job next season, though with the crowded blue line in St. Louis, it won’t be an easy task to crack the NHL roster.

The St. Louis Blues have officially signed prospect Scott Perunovich to an entry-level contract, but unlike Alexander Romanov and Kirill Kaprizov, the young defenseman will not be burning a year in 2019-20. Instead, Perunovich’s two-year contract will begin in the 2020-21 season.

You can’t have a much better season than Perunovich just did. After winning the NCAA championship in 2019, the defenseman decided to head back to the University of Minnesota-Duluth where he reached a new level of dominance. Not only was he UMD’s most potent offensive weapon, but Perunovich ended up taking home the Hobey Baker award as the country’s top collegiate player, the Jim Johannson award as the USA Hockey college player of the year, a first-team All-American selection and almost countless other conference awards. After all that success there was little left for Perunovich to accomplish in college, meaning the NHL and professional hockey was the obvious step this summer.

After the decision by the league to not allow new players to compete in the playoffs, it was just down to whether Perunovich would get to burn a year of his deal or not. Unlike Romanov and Kaprizov however, there wasn’t the threat of returning to the KHL for another season.

The smooth-skating defenseman will immediately be in the Blues’ plans for next season and could potentially be a very important one given the situation the team is in. Captain Alex Pietrangelo is still unsigned and scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent, and with the salary cap staying flat next season it may be difficult to bring him back. That’s not to say the Blues won’t try, but if they for whatever reason can’t reach an agreement with Pietrangelo there will be huge minutes up for grabs in St. Louis.

While Perunovich isn’t the same type of 25-minute two-way player, he does bring huge offensive upside and could potentially slide into a powerplay unit right away. Unfortunately we won’t get to see what he can bring until December at the earliest, but that only gives him even more time to get accustomed to life in professional hockey and a new organization.

The only way Scott Perunovich’s season could get any better at this point is if the NHL allows him to sign and play with the St. Louis Blues this season. The talented young defenseman has added another trophy to his wall, winning the Jim Johannson College Player of the Year Award. Perunovich previously won the Hobey Baker and agreed to join the Blues organization.

University of Minnesota-Duluth head coach Scott Sandelin explained just why Perunovich was so important to his team:

He was a go-to guy for us, who played a ton of minutes. He’s always been a really talented offensive player with great vision, but I saw the development and how he has grown over the years here. It’s a great honor and the accolades he’s getting are certainly well deserved.

Perunovich, 21, acknowledged his teammates in his acceptance statement, but there is no doubt that he was the leader on UMD. With 40 points in 34 games he led the team in scoring despite playing defense, and was seemingly on the ice for every second shift all season long.

The second-round pick will now have to wait and see whether the NHLPA can convince the league to allow new contracts for 2019-20 so that he can help the Blues in a playoff run. So far the NHL has not budged, meaning Perunovich most likely will have to wait until 2020-21 to make an impact.

While undersized, there’s no doubting Perunovich’s talent with the puck and ability to find open teammates for scoring chances. There could be a period of adjustment at a higher level, but Blues fans are excited for him to get the opportunity.