St. Louis Blues Alexei Toropchenko Continues The KHL Train
The St. Louis Blues continue to explore options to keep their prospects in shape. Another forward has gone home to Russia.
In baseball, the media tended to refer to the trip from either Memphis or Springfield as the (insert interstate name) corridor for the St. Louis Cardinals. The way things are going for the St. Louis Blues, they might have to start referring to their minor league system as the KHL corridor.
The Blues already sent Klim Kostin back to Russia to play in the KHL. Now, one of his fellow countrymen will join him in the league, just not for the same team.
Alexei Toropchenko has been loaned to the Russian league. His situation will be quite unique.
Like Kostin, Toropchenko will be allowed to return to the United States if/when the NHL or AHL returns to the ice. It is the team he will be on that will be under interesting circumstances.
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HC Kunlun Red Star is actually based in Beijing, China. They have only been a part of Russia’s KHL since the 2016-17 season.
Despite their normal location, they will be playing their home games in a suburb of Moscow, which is over 3,000 miles away. That’s basically like a New York team playing their home games in Los Angeles.
However, it might not affect Toropchenko that much. He hails from Moscow originally, so he will be in more familiar surroundings.
The loan will allow Toropchenko to learn under another former Russian NHL player. Alexei Kovalev is currently the head coach of HC Kunlun Red Star.
There is not a ton of pressure on Toropchenko as a fourth-round pick, but there does need to be signs of improvement if he hopes to play in the NHL one day. He only had five goals and nine points in the AHL last season, though that was his first ever season as a professional.
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The Blues prospect has NHL size at 6’3, 200-plus lbs but he just needs to show a little more against professionals. He’ll get his looks since the Blues are a little thin at RW, so hopefully getting his feet wet in his home country before the North American season starts will give him a boost.