Vladimir Tarasenko Thriving in Evolved Role on Brink of Cup with Panthers. Could He Be a Fit in Detroit?
Veteran Florida sniper Vladimir Tarasenko is thriving on the brink of a second Stanley Cup. Could the current Panther make sense for the Red Wings if he reaches free agency this summer?
If the Florida Panthers can win one of their next three games, Vladimir Tarasenko will become a two-time Stanley Cup champion.
Now 32, the Yaroslavl-born sniper isn't the same player who helped provide the goals the Blues needed on their way to the 2019 Cup. With St. Louis that postseason, he scored 11 goals and gave 10 assists, playing 18:01 a night. Tarasenko was the prime finisher of a defense first team. This year with Florida, Tarasenko still spends some time on the top line but not as he once did, now averaging just 13:35 a night.
At this stage of his career, Tarasenko clearly belongs in the category of 'secondary scorer,' but make no mistake: A scorer he remains with five goals and counting these playoffs, with two coming in the Stanley Cup Final. And Tarasenko's offense hasn't come at the expense of defending. At five-on-five this postseason, Florida has a 53.09% xG share and a 66.67% share of actual goals with him on the ice.
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In his first championship run, he blocked eight shots. This time around, he has 18, despite having played five fewer games, a marker of the work necessary for a secondary scorer from which a team's top scorer might have been excused. He's spent time on the top line with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart, and he's played on the third line with Eetu Luostarinen and Anton Lundell. He hasn't been dominant, and there have been lapses in consistency, but he's been a contributor nonetheless, making himself useful in the heavy cycle and forecheck game that defines Paul Maurice's Panthers.
If Tarasenko's own role evolved between the two, there are broad strokes similarities between these Panthers and those Blues. Both are physical, deep and defense first. Tarasenko hasn't exactly carved out his career with tight checking, but it can't be ignored that he's thrived as a scorer on teams built to defend. He hasn't had the same attacking freedom or support he might have elsewhere around the league, but in return for (perhaps) diminished counting stats during the regular season, Tarasenko is now on the cusp of a second Cup.
No, Tarasenko wasn't the greatest sniper of his generation, but he was a damn good one. He scored 40 goals just once (in 2015-16) but finished between 33 and 39 goals six more times. And he did it all in environments that privileged defending over chance creation (except I suppose for his first half of this season in Ottawa, before being traded to Florida at the deadline).
That specific quality—thriving as a scorer on a team priding itself on defense—makes him sound like a strong fit, at least in theory, for the Red Wings. Detroit wants to improve defensively without giving back too much of the offensive gains it made between the '22-'23 and '23-24 seasons. Tarasenko—a pending unrestricted free agent—could help make that happen.
Unfortunately for Red Wings fans, it's an unlikely union. First and foremost, if Florida finishes the job, there would be an obvious incentive for Tarasenko to stick around South Florida, especially considering it was reported to be the only option he wanted at this year's deadline. Then, there's the fact that if he does hit free agency, he'd be a in demand commodity coming off a second championship, strong postseason, and 55-point regular season, likely stretching past Detroit's price range for a depth player.
Nonetheless, while it's unlikely to work for Detroit, Tarasenko has nonetheless had a postseason worthy of admiration, evolving once more in a successful career in a paradoxical world, as a scorer thriving amongst defensive giants.
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