Red Wings winger David Perron discusses Detroit's outlook for the coming season, off-season preparation, changing sticks a year ago, and the nature of winning hockey

Now 35 years old and entering his 17th NHL season, David Perron knows he can't get ready for a new year the way he might have at 23.

"I talked with Alex Tanguay at my end-of-year meeting, and he mentioned himself that in the later years of his career, he wished that he maybe dropped five, six, seven pounds and made sure he showed up to camp in incredible shape, and that's exactly what I did over the summer," Perron explains to the press after a Friday morning practice. 

"I went from probably 200, 202 [pounds], and I'm at probably 194, 195 right now...I feel really good right now. Just working through those first couple days of soreness and then I'm gonna really start pushing...It's one thing to play 3-on-3 in the summer, and there's no physical plays, but I think you saw in the first two days, guys are trying to get physical to really increase the pace, and that's what I'm out there to do."

When asked what his motivation was, the Sherbrooke, Quebec-native quips cutting a few pounds "just to be able to follow Larks [Dylan Larkin] around."  In a moment of greater sincerity, he offers, "I don't want to just take on a leadership role and just do that in the room. I want to be a guy that does it on the ice too."

In his previous 16 seasons, Perron's teams have qualified for the playoffs 10 times.  He has been painfully close to championships, and he has won them.  

Midway through the '15-16 season, the Penguins sent Perron to Anaheim.  They went on to win consecutive Stanley Cups, while Perron's Ducks fell to Nashville in the first round.  Perron went back to St. Louis (where his career began and where he has played in three different stints), only to be selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft.  Those Knights then fell to Washington in the Stanley Cup Final in 2018.

However, back in St. Louis for the '18-19 season, Perron claimed hockey's top prize at last—chipping in 16 points on the Blues improbable march to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

All of this is to say David Perron knows a thing or two about what winning NHL hockey looks like, and when he scans the current Red Wing dressing room, he likes what he sees.

Perron opened his press conference by praising the work Derek Lalonde and his staff have done to get camp started off the right way.  He adds that this group "has the potential to be a really good team and compete every night.  If we take care of that each and every day, we will get to a better spot and a spot that maybe surprises people."

"We know exactly what we want to accomplish," Perron continues.  "We go into a practice, and we don't just wait around and see what our system's gonna be, what kinda drills we're gonna do.  The older guys, all the guys that are familiar with what we're supposed to do out on the ice, we can push the pace in practice, and that's exactly what we've done in the first two days already."

Over the summer, Perron played in the Living Sisu Hockey League, a Montreal-based, 3-on-3 league populated by numerous NHLers with Quebecois roots.  Playing on a team featuring Kris Letang, Nick Suzuki, Louis Dominque, and new teammate Daniel Sprong, Perron won the league.

"We found a way to win," he explains with a sheepish grin. "It's always fun those. It lasted from early July to mid-, late August. We didn't have a great season, but we had a good playoffs, and we won."

Even if a summer league title pales in comparison to a Stanley Cup, Perron sees lessons to be gleaned from the team's experience.  

In looking at Sprong (whom he had previously played with in Pittsburgh, the veteran winger notes "For him, if he focuses on all the details that coaches like, that coaches see him do every single night to give him more opportunities...As a young guy, it feels sometimes like when you focus more on the defensive side, the structure and all that, you kind of feel like you give away offense. But in the end you don't, because the coaches will end up giving you more on the other side in the long run, and that's what you should focus on."

He believes the same logic applies to his team as a collective: "It's the same thing.  You want to win games when the game gets tight.  Early on in the summer, guys kinda float around, and towards the end of August, you can see the competition pick up."

As Dylan Larkin noted on the opening day of camp, Perron played an active role in reminding his teammates where they stood with respect to the playoff race a year ago.  When asked about this choice, he explains that it wasn't something he'd done at previous stops but that he wanted to sharpen the Red Wings' focus.

"I've never done that before last year," Perron said.  "Some of the other teams I was on, we just played the games and it took care of itself. We were in a good spot; you get excited because you see where you are every week. You lose one, lose two; it doesn't matter and you find it back. I do think that for us, whether it's at game 40 or game 60 or game 81 or maybe game one of the first round, it's gonna come where there's a trigger point for us. 

"I just felt like at times maybe we weren't really focusing or aware of this, and it's not in me—even summer hockey, the 3-on-3 league—I gotta find a way to win the games. It's just the way I'm built. I felt like I've won at every level, and I feel like in my heart, if you don't think like that, you're not going to have a chance. I'm not saying that we're contenders to be a top six team in the league; I don't think we are. But at the same time, you've got to feel in your heart and think about it at least and put your best foot forward."

Of course, jumping from the familiarity of St. Louis to a new home in Detroit wasn't the only major shake-up to Perron's career last season.  After growing dissatisfied with a change in the production of his sticks, Perron had to find a new twig for the first time in five years.  After some experimentation, he settled on replacing his old CCM Ribcor ASY for a Warrior Novium.

"With my old stick that I had for at least five years, I never changed anything, never asked to change anything, and I think it's just an extension of our body," Perron explains. "Eventually, you get so used to it that you know exactly how it's supposed to feel. And then that company sent me some, and it just felt like the curve was slightly different. I don't know if they changed factories or whatever...Who knows how that went down. When I tried the new Warrior stick, the first game I had a hat trick, and obviously that'll give you the confidence to maybe stick with it a little longer. It was a work in progress to find the next one, because I felt like the other company wasn't gonna do it the way I wanted any more."

With that drama of stick production out of the way, Perron can turn his focus fully back to playing hockey.  Among the reasons he appreciates his coach's approach to camp is Lalonde's emphasis on trying out myriad line combinations, which Perron believes will help prepare the team for the realities of an NHL season.

"It's great to see it," Perron says. "You want to be able to be familiar with several combinations, [because] during the year, over 82 games, you're going to end up playing with different guys. And that's the great thing with our group this year—adding [J.T.] Compher—I think the top nine really solidifies everything. Whether you're on the first line, second line, third line, you're playing with first liners that are very experienced."

When he looks back to last year's Red Wings, Perron believes there was more right with the team than wrong.  With new additions like Compher and Alex DeBrincat in the fold, he's encouraged about what the future might bring:

"Last year we had the battle level, we had many things going our way, but you do hope that getting more goal scorers [will push the team forward], but at the same time, you hope that everyone gets on board with still playing that structured game.  Definitely we want more goals, but definitely we don't want to lose—if anything we want to our structure, to our predictability."