Here’s how the St. Louis Blues can survive without Vladimir Tarasenko

The St. Louis Blues will be without Vladimir Tarasenko for five months due to injury, but not all hope is lost.

The St. Louis Blues suffered a major blow to their hopes of repeating as Stanley Cup champions this week. Top-line forward, and perennial 30-goal scorer, Vladimir Tarasenko will be out for at least five months after having surgery to repair a shoulder injury that was sustained earlier in the month.

Tarasenko’s timetable would put his potential return date to late March or early April depending on how his reevaluation goes, meaning the Blues will play the majority of the 2019-20 season without their top goal scorer from the last five seasons. Should the Blues want to make the postseason come spring, they’re going to have to do it without the help of their most talented player.

Losing one’s best player a mere month into a season usually spells doom for a team in a sport like hockey. Filling a 30 goal, 70-plus point per season hole is going to be an incredibly tough task for even the reigning Stanley Cup champions to fill over the coming months.

And yet, there’s still hope for the Blues to patch up their ship and keep it afloat until Tarasenko returns by the playoffs. Here’s how it can happen.

Depth players have to step up

In Tarasenko’s absence, top players such as Brayden Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly will no doubt be relied upon to help make up for the loss of such an important player. Schenn played directly on the top line with Tarasenko and will have to drive play in his own right without the explosiveness of his teammate. Jaden Schwartz also plays on the top line for the Blues alongside Schenn, and will need to be better than his 10 points in 12 games start on the season.

With the news of Tarasenko’s injury, 20-year-old Robert Thomas has been taking shifts on the top line with Schenn and Schwartz, a tall task for a young player. Thomas had 33 points in 70 games for the Blues last season — with six points in the Blues’ successful playoff run — and is a fine short-term answer to St. Louis’ problems, but not a long-term one.

There are possible call-ups the Blues can make from their AHL team, the San Antonio Rampage, to help St. Louis right the ship. Nathan Walker leads the team with 12 points and seven total goals so far this season as the team’s top prospect, while others such as Jordan Kyrou or Klim Kostin could be recalled to give the Blues a shot in the arm offensively.

As for trades, the Blues are unlikely to find a willing partner this early in the season with teams still believing they have a shot at turning things around. A solution is likely going to have to come from within for the Blues to stabilize without Tarasenko’s presence, as waiting around for a trade partner that may or may not emerge isn’t an active fix.

To the Blues’ credit, that seems to be where their heads are at now, according to general manager Doug Armstrong.

“Our depth will come from within right now,” Armstrong said to NHL.com on Tuesday. “If they can get that job done, if we feel that we don’t have the ability to perform at the ability that we deem necessary, we can always look outside.”

The Blues have been here before, sort of

Famously, the Blues were in last place in the middle of the 2018-19 season before going on to win their first Stanley Cup come June. Adversity has been a major part of this Blues’ team, and being considered underdogs were a factor in the team’s magic run to the postseason and Stanley Cup Final.

Of course, a new season means new narratives, and lightning doesn’t strike twice as the phrase says. The Blues expended a lot of energy to make the run they had last season happen, and they played the longest out of anyone last year alongside Boston in a tough, seven-game series.

It’s a long 82-game season, and the Blues have been in this position before. Getting into the playoffs is all the Blues would need to do, and so far this season they’ve set themselves up in good position to do so.

The Central is weaker than its ever been

Maybe the biggest, and most compelling, reason that the Blues should be hopeful in a season without Tarasenko is that the Central Division is up for the taking. In the Western Conference, the Blues sit at 6-3-3, good enough for third place in the Central Division after playing through a solid month of October.

While in years past the Central was seen as a murder’s row of teams, the 2019-20 season has proven the opposite. The Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild were never competing for a playoff spot with their aging, retooling teams. The Winnipeg Jets’ defensive woes will likely keep them out of a tight playoff race down the line. The Dallas Stars have promise, but have started 4-8-1 on the season and are starting to run out of time to get things going.

Even the Colorado Avalanche, one of the NHL’s best teams this season who looked to possibly run away with the Central, have taken two major blows within the last week. Both Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog will be out for varying periods of time this season, blowing a hole in the Avalanche’s most productive line.

While the Nashville Predators seem to be finding their legs after a slow start, the Central Division is the weakest its been in years, and the Blues can capitalize on that in a big way. St. Louis needs to stay in the top half of the Central to make a playoff push, and with the way the season has gone so far, they are in a perfect spot even without the team’s best player.

Losing Tarasenko for five months isn’t what the Blues were hoping for when they started off their season as reigning Stanley Cup champions, but the road back to the postseason isn’t as dire as it seems.