Tarasenko to return to St. Louis for evaluation of injured shoulder

Vladimir Tarasenko is headed back to St. Louis to meet with team doctors for further evaluation of his surgically-repaired shoulder.

Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong made the announcement through a team press release on Tuesday. A further update on Tarasenko's status will be available on Monday.

"He obviously wasn't comfortable with the way it felt. We've got to get it looked at," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said. "It's concerning. We don't know a lot yet, so I'm not going to jump to conclusions on anything. He's not feeling right, so that's why he's going to get it looked at. I don't know what to tell you, to be honest. It's concerning, but we've got to wait and see."

Tarasenko missed one round-robin contest and Games 3 and 4 of the Blues' first-round series with Vancouver. He was originally injured on Oct. 24, 2019 vs. Los Angeles and missed 61 games after undergoing shoulder surgery. He returned to the lineup for the first time in the Blues' exhibition game on July 29 against Chicago and had played in five games (including the exhibition) since the NHL resumed play.

"When you get something done like that and you're out nine months, you're going to have some issues when you come back, no matter what, right? But he felt good, he was ready to go," Berube said. "When it gets ramped up in a real game, things change. The intensity level goes way up, the banging and things like that. I'm sure maybe that had something to do with it. I'm not sure, nobody is, even Vladi's not. We'll see what shows up here and we can go from there."

Prior to the shoulder injury, Tarasenko had posted 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 10 regular-season games.