(Fort Lauderdale) Vladimir Tarasenko was born and raised in Russia, in addition to playing in the NHL for the Blues in St. Louis, the Rangers in New York and the Senators in Ottawa.
Now he’s home in Florida.
For the past year or so, Tarasenko’s wife and children have been based in South Florida. This is one of the reasons why the winger, who won the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019, jumped at the chance to join the Panthers.
The Panthers gave up two draft picks to the Senators in exchange for the forward on Wednesday.
“We normally spend the summer there, but this year we decided to stay there,” Tarasenko said. The children go there to play hockey and go to school, in addition to enjoying the sun. »
Tarasenko also plans to win with his new team. The latter goes from a team out of the playoff picture to the one with the best record in the league.
At practice on Thursday, head coach Paul Maurice placed his new forward on a line with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart, who has scored 45 goals so far this season.
The striker knows a few players on his new team well. He is good friends with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov, in addition to having played with defenseman Niko Mikkola with the Blues. Tarasenko also trained with forward Matthew Tkachuk during the summers.
Barkov said the team didn’t need much time to welcome their new addition, because even though the Panthers are already at the top of the standings, Tarasenko makes the team even better.
“The addition of Tarasenko to our team is huge,” Barkov said. He can score, he can create plays, and he’s very skilled and hard-working. That’s exciting. »
Tarasenko has scored 17 goals this season and 287 in his career.
Tarasenko had a full no-trade clause in his contract for one season and five million dollars. The winger mentioned that Florida was the only team he wanted to be traded to.