Forgotten in the NHL draft and still biting elbows: the history of the «Russian tank»

Vadim KuznetsovCorrespondent SportAll materialsLast night Vladimir Tarasenko scored 500th point in the NHL championships. The correspondent recalls how the former captain of the Russian youth team went to this achievement. Tarasenko is only the fourth player in the history of St. Louis with such performance. After each bright match, Vladimir recalls the beginning of his career in the Blues. Summer 2010, another draft. The main intrigue of the ceremony is which of the Canadians will be chosen first: Taylor (Hall) or Tyler (Seguin)? Of the Russians, Alexander Burmistrov was the first to be drafted, who has been playing at the average level in the KHL for five years now, and the name Tarasenko surfaced an hour and a half after the start of the event. “St. Louis” by that time had already spent his peak on another player, but he managed to make an exchange with “Ottawa” and pick up a talented striker. Swedish defender David Rundblad became compensation for the future Stanley Cup winner and author of two hundred goals. Half a dozen more teams that once underestimated Tarasenko or were afraid of the KHL factor must now also bite their elbows. Wladimir gave the “St. Louis” not only goals and assists, but also a huge boost of confidence, which helped the club to achieve unique achievements. True, then, in the early tenths, it seemed that Tarasenko's team was out of luck. It just so happened that the Russians in the “Blues” historically played no matter. After an unsuccessful experiment with the Moscow Express trio (Vitaly Prokhorov, Vitaly Karamnov, Igor Korolev), St. Louis did not trust players from Russia too much and no one except Alexander Khavanov managed to stay in the team for more than a couple of seasons. In addition, the head coach of the Blues was Ken Hitchcock, who is known for his exacting attitude towards young hockey players from Europe. More hyped than Tarasenko, Nikita Filatov with a Canadian coach did not work out at all.