The St. Louis Blues had to wait until the first day of the regular season, but as expected, Vladimir Tarasenko has been placed on long-term injured reserve. The move allows them to recall both Jordan Kyrou and Mackenzie MacEachern from their taxi squad.
Tarasenko, 29, will miss the first part of the regular season following his multiple shoulder surgeries and is set to be re-evaluated in February. The powerful winger was able to play in just ten regular season games last season but did manage to return for four postseason contests. He seemed a shadow of himself in those matches, recording zero points and now it’s unclear exactly what kind of season he’ll be able to put together in 2021.
The Blues have now used long-term injured reserve for both Tarasenko and Alex Steen, though as CapFriendly explains on Twitter they actually were unable to maximize the relief available. Moving Tarasenko to LTIR gives them his full $7.5MM in room, at least until he returns to the lineup later in the season. That’s why Kyrou and MacEachern can move back to the active roster.
The team will now be able to fill those two taxi squad spots with other names, providing even more depth for the NHL team to travel with.
i hope vlad can come back fully healthy but at this point at best 75% of vlady is optimistic. guy is a stud no question about that but the real question is how much of stud is he going to be after 2 shoulder surgeries. shoulders are tricky to repair and his game is his shot. if vlad was a dmen i would be less worried.
Can you imagine if it was his third surgery? Hockey is hard enough with a full range of motion.