Tarasenko traded to Rangers by Blues

Vladimir Tarasenko was traded to the New York Rangers by the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.

St. Louis received forward Sammy Blais, defenseman prospect
Hunter Skinner
, a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft and a fourth-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. New York also received defenseman Niko Mikkola.
"The building, it's always exciting to play there," Tarasenko said Friday about playing at Madison Square Garden. "It's a good team, obviously. They have a goal here to win a Cup, which is very exciting."
The Rangers got a head start on the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline on March 3 by acquiring the 31-year-old forward. Tarasenko and Mikkola will play for New York when it hosts the Seattle Kraken at Madison Square Garden on Friday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, SN, MSGSN, ROOT-NW, SN NOW).
"It's something we've been looking at for a while and when the pieces started to come together, I didn't really see any reason to wait," Rangers general manager Chris Drury said. "It certainly gives the two new players a little more time to acclimate to our group. There's still a few weeks before the deadline, but we're excited to be able to do it now and get them in lineup tomorrow."
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Tarasenko gives New York a forward to strengthen its scoring depth. He has 29 points (10 goals, 19 assists) in 38 games this season.
A first-round pick (No. 16) by St. Louis in the 2010 NHL Draft, Tarasenko has 553 points (262 goals, 291 assists) in 644 regular-season games. He scored at least 33 goals in five consecutive seasons (2014-19), including an NHL career-high 40 in 2015-16. He's fifth in Blues history in goals and points, and second with 41 goals in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 26 behind Brett Hull (67).
Tarasenko's 11 goals were second on St. Louis to Jaden Schwartz (12) during the 2019 playoffs, when the Blues won the Stanley Cup.
"Tough situation for sure," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "Obviously we haven't performed well enough, and that's what happens. Trades are made. But both of them have been good players for us. Obviously 'Vladi's' been here a long time, won a Cup here with us. They'll both be missed."
In the final season of an eight-year, $60 million contract ($7.5 million average annual value) and eligible to become an unrestricted free agent after this season, Tarasenko appeared likely to be moved before trade deadline with the Blues struggling in recent weeks. St. Louis (23-25-3) has lost five in a row and is nine points out of a playoff position.
"I'm focused on the games," Tarasenko said at NHL All-Star Game Media Day on Feb. 2. "I don't think I should waste my time and energy to be focused on things I cannot control. You can ask [Blues general manager Doug Armstrong] what's going to happen."

Though Tarasenko has a full no-trade clause in his contract, Armstrong said Tarasenko and his agent Paul Theofanous provided him with a list of teams he would like to be traded to "a couple years ago."
"So, I started with that group, and I was able to find a match out of that group," Armstrong said. "I was hoping that didn't change. Obviously, New York is a marquee city for all players in the League, so I was comfortable that when I called today, I would've been surprised had that been an issue."
Armstrong said St. Louis will retain 50 percent of Tarasenko's remaining salary. The conditional first-round pick going to the Blues will be the later of the two that the Rangers currently have (their own and the Dallas Stars' pick from the Nils Lundkvist trade). The 2024 fourth-round pick becomes a third-round selection if New York qualifies for the playoffs this season.
Blais, also a member of the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup team, was acquired by the Rangers in a trade for Pavel Buchnevich on July 23, 2021. He has nine assists in 54 games over the past two seasons. Skinner, 21, has not played in the NHL. The fourth-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft (112), he had eight points (three goals, five assists) in 22 games for Hartford of the American Hockey League.
Tarasenko has gone through some ups and downs with the Blues the past three seasons while dealing with injuries. He had 82 points last season (34 goals, 48 assists) in 75 games after he played 34 games the previous two (2019-21) and did not make his 2020-21 season debut until March 6 because of surgery on his left shoulder for the third time Sept. 17, 2020. He had 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in 24 regular-season games in 2020-21 and missed the final six games and eight of the last nine with a lower-body injury.
Armstrong credited Tarasenko with helping St. Louis win the Stanley Cup in 2019 and for how he handled his injuries problems and contract situation.
"When you go back a couple years when he's coming off the injuries and he asked if we could see if we could find a different spot for him, that was a tough summer, obviously, so we couldn't do anything there," Armstrong said. "I thought he came back in great shape. He had a great year last year and he's been a professional, quite honestly, from the day we drafted him. That's just who he is. … He did everything we could ask for on and off the ice to prepare to be a good player."
Tarasenko is friends with Rangers forward Artemi Panarin, and Drury acknowledged that he had a quick conversation with Panarin about Taraskenko as part of his homework before completing the trade.
"I'll keep that between me and him," Drury said. "But again, he's an elite goal-scorer, an elite talent and has scored a lot of goals in this league, including scoring a lot of playoff goals, and we're excited to add him to the group, and I think he'll fit in nicely."
Drury said Mikkola, who has three assists in 50 games with the Blues this season, was also an important part of the trade. A fifth-round pick (No. 127) by St. Louis in the 2015 NHL Draft, the 26-year-old has 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) in 139 NHL regular-season games, and two assists in 16 playoff games.
"Yeah, he was a big piece of it," Drury said. "As we as we pushed along on the deal, this was a piece that I really wanted in there and to have him in there now and not wait on it. He's a real good shutdown defenseman. Obviously, he's got size (6-foot-4, 209 pounds) and reach, like (Rangers defenseman) K'Andre [Miller] does. A lot of good reports on him. We've done our homework and feel good about adding him to our [defense] corps."
Drury left open the possibility of making another trade before the deadline to bolster New York's chances in the playoff race. The Rangers (29-14-8) are third in the Metropolitan Division, six points behind the second-place New Jersey Devils.
"Everyone is dealing with the salary cap and different ways to try and get deals done, and we're open to exploring different ways to figure out the next move for sure," Drury said.
NHL.com independent correspondent Lou Korac contributed to this report