St. Louis Blues star Vladimir Tarasenko is leaving the Edmonton bubble and returning to St. Louis “to meet with team doctors for further evaluation of his surgically-repaired shoulder,” the team announced Tuesday.
His status for the remainder of the playoffs will be determined next week.
“I’m not going to jump to conclusions on anything,” head coach Craig Berube said. “He’s not feeling right, so that’s why he’s going to get it looked at. It is concerning, but we’ve got to wait and see.”
Tarasenko had shoulder surgery in October and missed the final 61 games of the Blues’ regular season. Due to pandemic-induced pause, the sniper was healthy enough to return to the ice with his team in July and has appeared in five of the eight games the Blues have played in Edmonton, including an exhibition game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
However, he has been held out of the two most recent games in their series with the Vancouver Canucks — Sunday and Monday night.
“When you get something done like that and you’re out nine months, you’re going to have some issues when you come back no matter what,” Berube said. “We’ll see what shows up here and we can go from there.”
The five-time 30-goal scorer has zero points in four playoff games.
[relatedlinks]