Russian forward Vladimir Tarasenko joins the Florida Panthers

Prominent Russian forward Vladimir Tarasenko was traded from one team to another for the second year in a row before the trade ban came into effect at the end of the regular season. And for the second year in a row, this is a transition from a club with modest capabilities to a club that looks like one of the favorites in the fight for the Stanley Cup. Tarasenko, who last season went from the St. Louis Blues to the New York Rangers, who, however, did not help avoid failure in the playoffs, has now left the Ottawa Senators for the championship-leading Florida Panthers.

Official NHL website confirmed, that Russian forward Vladimir Tarasenko two days before the ban on player exchanges, traditional for the end of the NHL regular season, comes into force, moves from Ottawa to Florida. The Canadian club, as compensation for it, will receive the rights to select newcomers in the fourth and third rounds of the next two drafts, which belonged to the partner in the transaction. It is curious for the reason that for the second year in a row the same story is repeated with Tarasenko.

Vladimir Tarasenko, now 32 years old, spent almost his entire North American career with the St. Louis club. He played for them for almost 11 seasons, earning a reputation as an elite sniper, capable of consistently scoring more than three dozen goals in the regular season, albeit prone to injury.

But last season, also right before the trade deadline, St. Louis decided to part with the Russian, sending him along with defenseman Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers.

The meaning of the deal was quite clear. “St. Louis” had practically lost hope of making the playoffs, and its management wanted, feeling the need to carry out a restructuring, to get rid of an expensive and slightly inferior veteran in terms of productivity, who was also becoming a free agent in the summer anyway, providing in return compensation in in the form of rights owned by the partner to select newcomers in the next drafts. The Rangers, on the contrary, looked very powerful and, with the help of the experienced Tarasenko, hoped to further increase their chances in the fight for the Stanley Cup.

However, the move was unsuccessful. Tarasenko himself played well for the Rangers, but the New York club unexpectedly lost in the opening round of the playoffs to the New Jersey Devils, which were ranked much lower.

After the departure, quite expectedly – due to the overload of the payroll – he did not renew his cooperation with Vladimir Tarasenko. But Ottawa became interested in the Russian striker, offering him a rather good, considering the circumstances, one-year contract worth $5 million. And the Canadian team itself seemed to be a promising option for continuing Tarasenko’s career. For a long time it hung around among the middle peasants of the NHL, but acquired the appearance of a club ready for a breakthrough, having assembled a fairly high-quality roster.

Meanwhile, nothing worked out for Ottawa with a breakthrough. At the moment, it is in last place in its Atlantic division and is no longer in contention for the playoffs. At the same time, it cannot be said about Tarasenko himself that he experienced a personal crisis at the new club. Having scored 41 points and scored 17 goals in the current regular season, he, if we take performance specifically, maintained the level of the previous championship.

And again, a valuable asset – maybe not for the future, but at least for the upcoming playoffs – in Vladimir Tarasenko saw a club that is now definitely targeting the Stanley Cup.

In 2023, Florida played in the final series, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. However, now the chances of this team look much more solid.

Since the New Year, Florida has been playing extremely convincingly and consistently. It is she who heads the league summary table. The team wins primarily thanks to the reliability of the defense and the Russian goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky, and the attack, despite the presence of a whole group of excellent forwards in it, such as Matthew Tkachak, Sam Rinehart, Alexander Barkov, Carter Verhaeghi, can be considered at least a relatively weak link of the club . In terms of the number of goals scored in the regular championship – 211 – he is ninth.

Alexey Dospehov