Colton Parayko wandered into the corner, slumped one shoulder and exhaled.

He had just reached back and fired an arrow into the top corner behind Tuukka Rask, scoring his first goal in the follow-up season to his All-Rookie debut.

The celebration was muted, as it meant little in the context of the game. But the goal, scored after the star-crossed defender had fired more than 100 shots on goal (and attempted 100 more), meant something to the St. Louis Blues, who at the time were crossing the traverse into the second half of the season.

Surely it held significance to Parayko.

This scoring outage wasn't the classic case of a superstar's struggle subverting a team. It's not the rangy blue-liner's classification, nor his role. But unleashing 200 attempts before finally deceiving a netminder is the sort of misfortune that would commonly weigh heavy on a young player.

Or worse, lead him into the second-year trap many fresh-faced future stars - especially defensemen - commonly fall into, and struggle to escape.

Down on his luck, but importantly not himself, Parayko's rise wasn't disrupted when goalies seemed to ban together, rejecting the kitchen sink in 40 straight games to begin the year. Though it surely existed in the back of his mind, he continued to steadily establish himself as a reliable, all-situations contributor on the Blues' back end during his skid, tackling tougher matchups and eating more meaningful minutes in his sophomore season.

Having kept his focus on what he can control, the goals are now beginning to come as part of a steady stream of production, and he'll soon cruise past his rookie points mark.

This to which he owes, at least in part, to good counsel.

Alex Pietrangelo is the first-year captain of St. Louis, and a voice routinely inside the ear of Parayko. He explained that the key to maintaining an upward developmental trajectory in the early seasons is to resist the urge of trying to do too much.

"There were periods where it was easy to dwell on the negative," Pietrangelo told theScore, speaking to his experience as a young player. "The biggest thing for me as I have gotten older, talking to young guys is: Find who you are as a player. Don't try to change that. Don't be something that you're not.

"I've accepted my role. You find your place on your team. As a young guy, you always want more, which is a good thing because you push yourself.

"It's easy to dwell on the negative when you're not getting what you want."

Pietrangelo said Parayko quickly carved out a function in St. Louis, and has importantly stuck with it.

"Not many people can do what he's done over the past couple years, coming in and playing the way he has. If you watch him night in and night out, he plays the same way every single night, which is the one thing I have stressed to him moving forward.

"Work on your game. Get better in all facets. But find your game, keep working on it, and know the type of player that you are."

As a good student should, Parayko wasn't about to trivialize his captain's influence in the slightest. He said Pietrangelo has been "huge" for him, both on and off the ice, as he's made the adjustment to life in the NHL.

But such wisdom can't be the out-and-out solution for the common struggles of former breakout stars. Surely the Shayne Gostisbeheres and John Klingbergs have received similar advice from coaches and veteran players.

The difference for Parayko is that his fallback, when executed properly, offers immediate and reassuring feedback, because he isn't depended on to score like others who are strictly evaluated on point production. It's these players who more often drift, falling victim to the randomness of scoring and adjustments made by opposing teams.

Parayko is too busy studying up for the next challenging matchup to be hung up on output.

"I'm playing against top lines this year. That's helpful based on the fact that you know you have to be ready every game. It's been a big challenge for sure."

There are potential pitfalls within that, but Parayko knows where to turn when in need of sage advice.

"It's no different than real life. You live and you learn," Pietrangelo said. "Good players, whether young or old, veteran or rookie, it doesn't matter; we all make mistakes. It's how you bounce back from that.

"(It can be) a little harder as a young guy to bounce back from it, but I think as you get older, you find a way to learn from those, and it makes you better in the long run."

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