The St. Louis Blues thought they had a savior in Vladimir Tarasenko. Then, he went missing at the worst possible time. So, what are we to make of this budding superstar now?
The St. Louis Blues, and their fans, put a lot of faith and thus a lot of pressure on Vladimir Tarasenko. He was the team’s first 40 goal scorer since Brad Boyes in 2008.
When you just focus on the years, his accomplishments are impressive. The Blues hadn’t had a 40 goal scorer in eight seasons. It was seven seasons before that it had last happened.
Needless to say, the Blues haven’t had a single guy score that many that often in recent memory. So, he was quickly annointed as the next big thing.
When you look at the names that did it last though, it doesn’t seem quite as impressive. As members of the Blues, we liked Scott Young and Brad Boyes. However, they weren’t superstars. They were players that had a good season.
Is that all Tarasenko will be? Another in a long line of Blues that show promise, only to flop like the team in the playoffs? Will he be just another name that people constantly think he can live up to their expectations, only to fall short?
It seemed like that would not be the case. He came out and lit up the 2016 playoffs in the first two rounds after finishing off the regular season with four goals in the final three games.
His stats are somewhat ambiguous as to the answers to our questions. He scored four goals against Chicago in the first round. He had 13 points through two rounds against, what many considered, two of the best teams in the league.
If you only look at the cold stats, however, he didn’t have any game winners. He also only scored in the third period – usually one of the most important periods in playoff games – once until Game 6 against the Sharks.
Stats don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the entire story either. Tarasenko scored two goals against Chicago in one game, in Chicago. Those should have held up the way the team came out of the gate. The Blues turned around and lost the game.
Turn that particular coin around though and you could say he did end up scoring two goals against the Sharks. Yet, those goals came when the Sharks finally stopped paying any attention to him and the Blues were losing 4-0 at the time.
So, what is the truth for Tarasenko? Is he going to disappear when the heat gets turned up or was San Jose just a blip?
There’s no denying that the way the San Jose series played out was a colossal kick in the nuts for Blues fans. Their golden boy completely disappears for five games, only to score two seemingly meaningless goals when the game was decided. The only way it could have been worse was if he had completed the hat-trick and the Blues had lost 4-3.
However, you can’t completely throw out the previous two rounds. 20 games played with 15 points and 9 goals isn’t anything to scoff at. When he exited the 2016 playoffs, he was fourth in goals scored.
Again, the question arises of what should fans expect from him? Is he Cristiano Ronaldo? Is he incredibly talented, but doesn’t show up when it matters the most? Could he be the next Alexander Ovechkin? Score a bunch of goals in the regular season, but flounder in the postseason?
What will Blues fans see in the future? Will they see the player that scores for fun or the one that many were openly willing to bench in the San Jose series?
It’s impossible to tell, really. There is still reason to think he’s still going to be everything the Blues and their fans want him to be.
In only three playoff seasons (33 total games), he has 19 goals. He’s got eight playoff goals against Chicago alone. That’s a pretty good test of how he can perform against the best teams.
No, he didn’t show up enough in the San Jose series and we don’t know why. There were rumors of injury or illness. He could have been feuding with the coach again for all we know. However, you can’t completely judge a player based on one series.
Marc Vlasic did a fantastic job defending him, that’s for sure. Whether it was Vlasic or someone else, San Jose almost always had one player shadowing him specifically. That’s pretty difficult to get around.
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Also, you can’t completely judge Tarasenko in a vacuum. It doesn’t make sense to say Tarasenko should have done more to battle through the defending, but then give all the credit to the Blues for shutting down Chicago.
Doesn’t it seem likely that Blackhawks fans were saying the same things about Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane (1 goal between them) in terms of having to do more against the defense? Are they not still elite players even though the Blues managed to shut them down?
Tarasenko is still a young player. He’ll still be 24 when the 2016-17 season rolls around. He’s also still learning.
It’s not an excuse, but there is something to be said for switching not only leagues, but an entire culture. He’s adapted incredibly fast and still has room to grow. He’s also only the second player in Blues’ history to score 25 points or more in the playoffs by age 24.
If he’s still going to be great, why did he disappear against the Sharks? No idea.
It could be an injury we were never aware of. Perhaps the pregnancy of his wife and eventual birth of his son was weighing too much on him. Maybe it was simply the number of games.
Tarasnko had performed well in the playoffs the last two years, but with the Blues never getting out of the first round, he had never had to perform for this long. The playoffs wear people to the bone and he hadn’t had to deal with it for this long.
None of those things are excuses. If you’re going to be the leader of a team, you have to deal with it. Those things do factor in though and though we deify these players too often, they are only human.
Ultimately, Tarasenko is going to be as good as he wants to be. The talent is in there.
Next: Blues Took A Big Step Despite A Disappointing End
He’s not going to be the next Brett Hull and that’s on fans and media for thinking so. We can compare them because both are fantastic players, but he’s just not likely to score like that and he shouldn’t be expected to. Hull was an all-time great.
He’s not the next Boyes or Young either. Boyes and Young only scored 40 once and 30 twice (if you include the 40 goal years).
Even if he’s not an all-timer, that doesn’t mean he can’t be great. The best Tarasenko we can get is still better than 3/4ths of the current NHL and that’s pretty special.