Recapping the St. Louis Blues’ Top 5 First Half Storylines

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

1. Vladimir Tarasenko Emerges as a Star

If there’s one Blues player who should be recognized for his first-half efforts, it’s 23-year-old forward Vladimir Tarasenko, who has really emerged on a national level as a star, and locally has shown himself to be the Blues’ best pure scorer since Brett Hull.

Tarasenko, who finished the first half with 22 goals and 21 assists, has been near the top of the NHL’s scoring leaderboard all season and currently is third in the league in goals, sitting behind the Rick Nash and the continually-dominant Tyler Seguin. While Tarasenko may not have had the most goals of any NHL player, he had to be the most impressive, as he had plenty of “SportsCenter Top 10”-worthy shots and was able to rack up not just one, but two, hat tricks over the first half.

While Tarasenko did have a great first half, it is worth noting that he ended it with a bit of a scoring slump, collecting just two goals over the last 10 games. Schwartz was undoubtedly affected by the loss of his linemate, Jaden Schwartz, who missed seven of those games with a broken foot, though he hasn’t resumed scoring goals since Schwartz has returned. It’s also possible that Tarasenko could be limited by pain from a puck that went hard off his foot back on December 27.

With that said, he’s continued to contribute to the Blues’ offense over that time by acting as a quality setup man. Tarasenko has five assists over those 10 games, four of which have come in the past four games. If he can continue to put up points on a nightly basis, there will be less pressure on him to score goals, as long as he’s getting on the scoresheet somehow.

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