DULUTH — The St. Louis Blues are finally giving former Minnesota Duluth defenseman Scott Perunovich a chance to show the NHL what he’s got — by trading him.
The Blues dealt Perunovich, 2020 Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner from Hibbing, to the New York Islanders on Monday for a conditional fifth-round draft pick in 2026. The Blues selected Perunovich in the second round of the 2018 draft — No. 45 overall — after his freshman season at UMD, when he won the Tim Taylor Award as the most outstanding freshman in college hockey.
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Perunovich, who helped the Bulldogs win back-to-back NCAA titles in 2018 and 2019, appeared in just 97 NHL games over five seasons with the St. Louis organization. He totaled two goals and 27 assists in the NHL, with two goals and four assists coming in 24 games this year.
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound, 26-year-old defenseman battled injuries early in his pro career — missing his entire rookie year in 2020-21 — but even when he was healthy, the Blues played him sporadically. He last played this month on Jan. 4.
And Perunovich didn’t get sent down to the American Hockey League, either, to develop. He only played 39 games with the Springfield Thunderbirds, where he averaged over a point per game via five goals and 37 assists over two AHL seasons between 2021 and 2023.
Perunovich posted 105 points in three seasons with the Bulldogs from 2017-2020, tallying 20 goals and 85 assists. He scored six goals and 34 assists the year he became the sixth Bulldog to win the Hobey, a season in which Perunovich and UMD were denied a shot at three-peating as national champions because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Islanders made the trade because they need bodies on the blue line. The team announced Monday that defenseman Ryan Pulock is out indefinitely, joining the team’s top-scoring defenseman, Noah Dobson. The Islanders signed defenseman Tony DeAngelo on Friday.
Perunovich will be a restricted free agent this offseason. He signed a two-year entry-level contract following his junior season at UMD, and one-year deals each of the last three offseasons.
This story was updated at 8:48 a.m. Jan. 28 correcting Perunovich's free agent status in the offseason. He will be a restricted free agent. The News Tribune regrets the error.
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