The forward, who has been skating regularly on his own and with other injured Blues skaters, practiced with the Blues for the third time in two weeks. His progress has been encouraging since dislocating his left shoulder against the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 24.
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"We've had positive news on Vladimir Tarasenko," Armstrong said Tuesday after defenseman Marco Scandella was traded to the Blues by the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft and a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.
"He's training well, skating in our morning skates. There's no new update on a timeline, but things are moving positive in that fashion. With the addition of Marco, I would say we're going to assess the trade market between now and Monday, but with the [NHL salary cap] situation, with [long-term injured reserve for defenseman Jay Bouwmeester], with a lot of the math equation that goes in, any deal I would say going forward is going to be strictly a hockey trade, which are very rare this time of year."
Tarasenko had surgery Oct. 29 and the original recovery timeline was five months.
"That 5-6 month window takes us from early March to early April," Armstrong said. "The way he's training now, I've talked to him the last couple of days. He looks great, but again, we have to get the doctors to sign off on these things. I don't want to get the cart too in front of the horse. It's not like you're going to see him on Thursday or Sunday or anything like that. Just an update that he's doing well and progressing and hopefully whether it's early March, mid-March, end of March, early April, that will be our great acquisition for the forwards at the deadline."
The Blues could target a forward before the deadline, including Chris Kreider (New York Rangers), Andreas Athanasiou (Detroit Red Wings), Kyle Palmieri (New Jersey Devils), Mike Hoffman (Florida Panthers) or Josh Anderson (Columbus Blue Jackets).
