Tarasenko Impresses in his Debut

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gp23Jkb7o0E?rel=0

If you were to say St. Louis fans are excited about Vladimir Tarasenko, you’d be understating things. Tarasenko made his debut with the Blues on Saturday night and got his NHL career off to a rather comical start before settling in and scoring two memorable goals. Take note NHL – this guy is for real.

If you missed the ceremony prior to the game itself, you missed a bit of comedy from Tarasenko. As each member of the Blues were introduced, they joined a line of players that stood on the blue line. Each player skated out and joined the line until it stretched nearly from one end of the rink to the other. Then Tarasenko was called. Instead of falling into the line, he skated in front of all of his teammates, slapping their sticks with his stick. He then took his spot second in the line sandwiched between Kris Russell and Jaden Schwartz. The rest of the roster all had a laugh, enjoying Tarasenko’s innocent yet comical mistake.

Pregame blooper aside, Tarasenko had a night that was nearly flawless.

Consider goal #1 at the top of this page. Leg fake and a beauty. It really doesn’t get much better than that when you’re in all alone against the goaltender.

Goal #1 was pretty nifty. Goal #2 was extremely impressive.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jN6yST8xHBE?rel=0

Wow. That’s a “goal scorers goal”, so to speak. Smooth move around the defense, cuts in and send the goaltender the wrong way before going against the grain and burying the puck with a chip.

That’s a quality goal in every sense of the word and it demonstrates to the rest of the NHL exactly why fans in St. Louis are in an uproar over the young Russian.