Let's Go Blues

I'm not talking about his stupid looks. Hull even admitted his fitness wasn't up to par and was often overweight even as a player. I could care less about his hair.

I'm just saying during those peak years you ALWAYS knew he was out there because he kept BLASTING those shots even if he didn't always score. Yet Tank was pretty much invisible yesterday vs Chicago.

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:I'm not talking about his stupid looks. Hull even admitted his fitness wasn't up to par and was often overweight even as a player. I could care less about his hair.

I'm just saying during those peak years you ALWAYS knew he was out there because he kept BLASTING those shots even if he didn't always score. Yet Tank was pretty much invisible yesterday vs Chicago.

You are new to the intarweb toobs?



@Goon - well played. Wish Rowdy was here to nuke this dude, lol.

I went and rewatched some of the games earlier this season, and Tank was moving a lot more. I mean, just hustling, and doing things without the puck, and making great defensive plays, things I wouldn't expect from a Russian player who came from the KHL. I was really skeptical of him at first even though I knew he had offensive talent because of this, but he immediately removed my doubt of his complete game while watching him.
However, I haven't seen that hustle from him in recent games. He seems to be waiting to receive the puck before doing anything. He looks, I don't know...tired, or hurt, or....something. He's just cruising a lot. He's still getting his chances here and there, but he's not doing much to help get the puck back from the opposition, and he's not making his great cross ice passes that relieve pressure in the d-zone. His passes look tired, and seem to get picked off a lot recently.
What do you guys think? Is he just getting played more closely because guys are recognizing his skill? Or does he look "tired" to you?

Well, look how good Brad Boyes was for his first few seasons. He had over 40 goals one season, and I think at least 3 times he scored 30 goals or more. He had quick hands and could deke like the best in the league. That didn't last long, though. I just hope Tarasenko isn't a one-hit wonder. I'd still say Boyes still remains the best shootout guy we ever had, even more than Senko and Osh. Boyes is underrated. He's one of the most dynamic goal scorers we ever had and he barely gets recognition.

xbleed83bluex wrote:Well, look how good Brad Boyes was for his first few seasons. He had over 40 goals one season, and I think at least 3 times he scored 30 goals or more. He had quick hands and could deke like the best in the league. That didn't last long, though. I just hope Tarasenko isn't a one-hit wonder. I'd still say Boyes still remains the best shootout guy we ever had, even more than Senko and Osh. Boyes is underrated. He's one of the most dynamic goal scorers we ever had and he barely gets recognition.

Are you (Franking) high?

I was laughing my ass off when Boyes missed the net from 15 feet away in the game the other night... THAT is Boyes right there.

There's a reason he's moved so many times in his career, and it isn't because he's teh awesomez. He had a couple good years, but then meh.

Scott Young had a 40 goal season too...

I was a season ticket holder during the Hull era. Tarasenko is a better overall hockey player, already, at 23 years old than Hull was at 33. Hull didn't even consider back-checking until playing for Hitchcock in Dallas who would bench him for not playing both ways.

I was at every Blues home game from 88-89 to 92-93. Hull's ability was finding open space and shooting, along with having a cannon of a shot. The Blues power play revolved around getting Hull the one-timer. That was Brett Hull. Because he didn't play defense, essentially only worked to find open space in the offensive zone (as in he didn't do the grinding in the corners), and had that cannon - he scored lots of goals. This style of play no longer works in this era. Ask Sergei Ovechkin.

Tarasenko does all of the following:
1) Quick shot
2) Hard shots
3) Outstanding stick-handling
4) Excels at finding space
5) Deceptive speed
6) Works corners
7) Actually hits, instead of avoiding hits
Just as good at setting up others
9) Plays hard in both ends.

At his current pace at Age 23, he should hit the same number of goals Hull had at age 23 as Blue.

He is the most dynamic goal scorer the Blues have ever had, because his goal scoring isn't just the two dimensions *hard shot, finding the goal scoring space) Hull had as a player while with the Blues.

IMO, Tarasenko is the best forward I have ever seen play for the Blues already. I just hope he keeps it up.

Bobbycissello wrote:I went and rewatched some of the games earlier this season, and Tank was moving a lot more. I mean, just hustling, and doing things without the puck, and making great defensive plays, things I wouldn't expect from a Russian player who came from the KHL. I was really skeptical of him at first even though I knew he had offensive talent because of this, but he immediately removed my doubt of his complete game while watching him.
However, I haven't seen that hustle from him in recent games. He seems to be waiting to receive the puck before doing anything. He looks, I don't know...tired, or hurt, or....something. He's just cruising a lot. He's still getting his chances here and there, but he's not doing much to help get the puck back from the opposition, and he's not making his great cross ice passes that relieve pressure in the d-zone. His passes look tired, and seem to get picked off a lot recently.
What do you guys think? Is he just getting played more closely because guys are recognizing his skill? Or does he look "tired" to you?

This is what I think has happened:
1) During the 2-2 road trip, Tarasenko was told to shoot more. He seems to be more looking for space to be setup for a shot, than just hustling and playing hard like he was doing before. This could easily be a coaching issue
2) Teams are getting quicker pressure on Lehtera and he is not making the clean cross-ice passes at center ice we were seeing before.
3) Whichever forward Hitch puts out with Tank and Lehtera, the line refuses to dump the puck, even when the passing lanes are clearly taken, and they are turning the puck over at the opposing blue line more often.
4) On power plays, it is darn clear opposing teams are focusing on not letting Tarasenko get in space and shoot.

We are finally seeing the other lines scoring the last few games and that should loosen up what may have been over-coaching of the Tarasenko line and Tank should start producing again. Right now, he looks like he is trying too hard to do whatever Hitch has told him, instead of using all that talent which was on display for several games.

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:I'm just saying during those peak years you ALWAYS knew he was out there because he kept BLASTING those shots even if he didn't always score. Yet Tank was pretty much invisible yesterday vs Chicago.

Ohhh...so one game where Tarasenko doesn't do much....that is your reasoning?
Shall I go back into the video vault and bring up games where Hull didn't do anything? There were a lot.

And you are just flat out wrong about Tarasenko. Even in games where he doesn't score, he is out there shooting and creating good chances out of seemingly nothing. And he can do it himself on any given rush. If he has the puck in the offensive zone, most of the time he seems to generate a good chance. He doesn't need someone to set him up like Hull did.

And again, I really enjoyed the Hull show when he was here. But Tarasenko is just a better all around player and can score goals in many more ways than Hull could ever dream of doing.
Hull's bread and butter was getting open and his quick hard release. Tarasenko has that quick hard release.

I don't know what the future holds for Tarasenko. Hopefully he continues to improve and has a long and successful career. But as of RIGHT NOW, Tarasenko is far more dynamic of a player than Hull ever was. It's not even close. There are actually a lot of guys in the league right now that you could say that about. The game today is full of players far better than players in previous eras. Players have just gotten bigger, faster, stronger and better over time.

Gretzky today wouldn't be near the player he was in his day. Same for Hull.
The Chris Porter we know today would have been an all-star 30 years ago.

Only vid on youtube that I could find of it. Even when we drafted Tarasenko I had never heard of him but Doc Emerich and the other commentators were just RAVING on the kid. Got me really excited then. It's tough to hear because this is the Russian clip but you can still hear the commentary in the background. Even then Emerich says at one point "This guy is a TANK."

"There's no better goal scorers available in this entire draft."

Boom. haha.

Anyway... (I couldn't get the youtube link to work as a video so I just gave up. I don't know how you guys do all this fancy tech stuff...



edit: And I know NHL Central Scouting doesn't get it right all the time, but Tarasenko was the 2nd highest ranked international player. Only Granlund was ahead of him. Glad he fell to 16th, just kinda surprised he did. Russian factor alone? Oh well, who care, we got him.

WaukeeBlues wrote:Only vid on youtube that I could find of it. Even when we drafted Tarasenko I had never heard of him but Doc Emerich and the other commentators were just RAVING on the kid. Got me really excited then. It's tough to hear because this is the Russian clip but you can still hear the commentary in the background. Even then Emerich says at one point "This guy is a TANK."

"There's no better goal scorers available in this entire draft."

Boom. haha.

Anyway... (I couldn't get the youtube link to work as a video so I just gave up. I don't know how you guys do all this fancy tech stuff...



edit: And I know NHL Central Scouting doesn't get it right all the time, but Tarasenko was the 2nd highest ranked international player. Only Granlund was ahead of him. Glad he fell to 16th, just kinda surprised he did. Russian factor alone? Oh well, who care, we got him.

It had to be the "Russian factor". There would be no other good reason for him to fall that far.

cprice12 wrote:

WaukeeBlues wrote:Only vid on youtube that I could find of it. Even when we drafted Tarasenko I had never heard of him but Doc Emerich and the other commentators were just RAVING on the kid. Got me really excited then. It's tough to hear because this is the Russian clip but you can still hear the commentary in the background. Even then Emerich says at one point "This guy is a TANK."

"There's no better goal scorers available in this entire draft."

Boom. haha.

Anyway... (I couldn't get the youtube link to work as a video so I just gave up. I don't know how you guys do all this fancy tech stuff...



edit: And I know NHL Central Scouting doesn't get it right all the time, but Tarasenko was the 2nd highest ranked international player. Only Granlund was ahead of him. Glad he fell to 16th, just kinda surprised he did. Russian factor alone? Oh well, who care, we got him.

It had to be the "Russian factor". There would be no other good reason for him to fall that far.

And then ironically Burmistrov goes 8th overall. I think that was just because he had played a year in the OHL so the thinking HAD to be "oh he came over here for juniors so that shows he'll probably stay."

Sweet, sweet irony.

I'm amazed this topic has gone on as long as it is. Bottom line is, we haven't ever had a player like Frank. Hull doesn't come close. I'm still surprised that we're trying to compare Hull to Frank instead of Chopper to Frank. While it'd be light years of a comparison between the two, it'd be a whole helluva lot closer than Frank and Hull, in my eyes.

NBCSN had a special on the top goal scores in NHL history. The top 4 are below:

4. Hull
3. Bossy
2. Lemieux
1. Gretzky

There is NO WAY Tank is in that group. Maybe eventually but not now! Time has eroded the memory for some of you on how great and dominant Hull was in his prime. That group is hockey royalty!

Fun fact, in Mario Lemieux's draft year, three players reached the 1000+ career point total. Lemieux, Hull and Luc Robataille. Lemieux went 1st (obviously) and Hull didn't go until the 6th round, Robataille in the 8th. Obviously a lot of scouts didn't see enough from the get go. Tarasenko, scouts saw a lot. They just passed on him because of the fear he'd stay in Russia. Tarasenko, therefore, is a natural, and Hull just happened to be really good. If Tarasenko wasn't Russian, he would have been a top 3 pick.

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:NBCSN had a special on the top goal scores in NHL history. The top 4 are below:

4. Hull
3. Bossy
2. Lemieux
1. Gretzky

There is NO WAY Tank is in that group. Maybe eventually but not now! Time has eroded the memory for some of you on how great and dominant Hull was in his prime. That group is hockey royalty!

Of course Tarasenko isn't going to be on that list. This is only his 2nd season in the NHL.
Hull wouldn't have made any kind of list like that during his 2nd season in the NHL either.

And nobody is saying Tarasenko is the best goal scorer in the history of the NHL. This thread is about the Blues and about him possibly being the most dynamic goal scorer WE have ever had. It's not about how many goals he will score in his career, it's about how dynamic he has been and how he can score goals in so many different ways.

dag...someone brought up Brad Boyes in this conversation. I wonder if he kept a straight face. Someone else compared Boyes to Scott Young-in fact, Young was a far superior player to Boyes. Far, far superior. Comparing Tarasenko to Boyes-*shakes head*-I mean, one would clearly have to know nothing about and have watched very little NHL hockey over the last decade or so. I can see where one might get turned around like that though if one's evaluation of players consisted entirely of looking up their stats on Wikipedia...

In my lifetime, the only Blues players in Tarasenko's class have been Hull, Shanahan, MacInnis, Stevens, Pronger and from what I hear, Liut. He now has-what?-15 years of his career in which to surpass them?

Again, I'm looking around the league (the world?) and asking myself who's better and I'm not really coming up with anyone who isn't at least 25 years old. Vova feels like the Blues' Pujols. We'll see.

ecbm wrote:dag...someone brought up Brad Boyes in this conversation. I wonder if he kept a straight face. Someone else compared Boyes to Scott Young-in fact, Young was a far superior player to Boyes. Far, far superior. Comparing Tarasenko to Boyes-*shakes head*-I mean, one would clearly have to know nothing about and have watched very little NHL hockey over the last decade or so. I can see where one might get turned around like that though if one's evaluation of players consisted entirely of looking up their stats on Wikipedia...

In my lifetime, the only Blues players in Tarasenko's class have been Hull, Shanahan, MacInnis, Stevens, Pronger and from what I hear, Liut. He now has-what?-15 years of his career in which to surpass them?

Again, I'm looking around the league (the world?) and asking myself who's better and I'm not really coming up with anyone who isn't at least 25 years old. Vova feels like the Blues' Pujols. We'll see.

Forgot Gilmour. He's in that group too.

No comparison was made between Boyes and Young... I simply pointed out that both players had anomalous 40 goal seasons one time in their respective career.

not_a_wings_fan wrote:No comparison was made between Boyes and Young... I simply pointed out that both players had anomalous 40 goal seasons one time in their respective career.

I know-your point is relevant and I agree. I was just highlighting that even Young was actually a much better all-around player. Young also had 7 other 20+ goal seasons whereas Boyes had 2. Boyes fluked his way to 40 goals and yes, I was watching. Not a coincidence that the ring count there is 2-0 to Young.

Another hatty for Tarasenko last night... first Blue since, take a guess, Brett Hull, to have two in a season.

In a season where many players suffer a "Sophomore Slump" he's out there drawing more comparisons to our greatest goal scorer ever.

He's got 20 goals already. We've played 31 games... I can't even... nuts.

I don't see this as an apparition, honestly. Players have hot streaks here and there (see, e.g. Steen last year) but I'm not seeing that when Tank loads up for a shot. He just has a knack for it, it's how he plays, he was touted that way even at the draft. He's a sniper. Period.

More to come...