Vladimir Tarasenko had a conference call with reporters this morning, the day after his eight-year, $60 million extension with the Blues was announced.
Can you sense a theme?
Tarasenko: "I'll try to do whatever I can to get St. Louis to win Cup." #StlBlues
— Andrew Allsman (@allsmandrew) July 8, 2015
Tarasenko on pressure with new contract: "All I'm dreaming about is winning a Cup." #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) July 8, 2015
Tarasenko on team needs: "We need to stay together. The main part for me, we need to have one goal. It's all about the Cup." #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) July 8, 2015
The Blues, despite icing a number of strong teams since joining the NHL in 1967, have never won the Stanley Cup. The last three seasons they’ve had good teams during the regular season, only to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. They haven’t been past the second round since 2001.
In Tarasenko, the Blues boast an elite goal-scoring winger who’s only 23 years old.
“We saw, I think just the tip of the iceberg of what Vladi can do in this league last year,” GM Doug Armstrong said yesterday, per NHL.com.
“Vladimir signed for eight years, Alex Pietrangelo signed for (seven), I think the nucleus of our defense and our forwards are here for the foreseeable future and we can build around that group.”
Safe to say, if St. Louis doesn’t win a championship over the next five or six years -- a period when Tarasenko and Pietrangelo will be right smack in their primes -- it’ll be even more heartache for the Blues and their fans.
Related: Blues appear set in the short-term, but difficult decisions loom