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Blues’ Tarasenko is sniping at Ovechkin-like level during playoffs

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Vladimir Tarasenko comes up big for St. Louis in Game 2 with a goal to tie the game late in the third period that extends his point streak to eight games.

The St. Louis Blues are breaking through in the playoffs like never before, but as hot as Vladimir Tarasenko is right now, he’s been clutch for some time now.

After scoring a goal in the Blues’ Game 2 win to extend his personal playoff point streak to eight games, Tarasenko now has a playoff career-high of 10 goals during the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. His 15 points during this run matches a career-high from 2015-16, when he scored nine goals and 15 points in 20 games. Even if Tarasenko hits a Zdeno Chara-sized brick wall and slows down during the rest of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final, there’s a strong chance that he’ll set a new career-high for points.

Impressive stuff, and Tarasenko isn’t just scoring pretty goals. His Game 2 tally was as gritty as it was pretty:

Tarasenko’s been a reliable 30+ goal scorer during the regular season, as his 33 in 2018-19 gives him five consecutive seasons with at least 30, with 40 from 2015-16 serving as his peak.

Overall, it’s not that shocking that Tarasenko has been a go-to guy for the Blues when they’ve needed playoff goals for years, yet it seems like he raises his game when the stakes get higher. If that’s off the mark, then Tarasenko seemingly doesn’t slow down in the playoffs in the same ways where others find their production stunted by an opponent throwing top defensemen and tough matchups at them every night.
[NBC 2019 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF HUB]

The 27-year-old winger has 32 goals in 65 career playoff games, just a hair under one every other game (.49 per contest).

To give some context, Sportsnet noted after Game 2 that Tarasenko’s .49 goal-per-playoff-game average is the second highest among active NHL players, with only Alex Ovechkin (.51) ranking higher. Perusing other stats really drives the point home that Tarasenko’s been quite the sniping machine in postseason contests.

If you zoom into the Tarasenko’s years, he rises even a bit more. Since 2013-14, Tarasenko’s 32 playoff goals only trails Ovechkin’s 34, and Tarasenko’s goals-per-game during that stretch is marginally higher (.50) than Ovechkin’s (.49). The only players who ranked higher during that time were Jake Guentzel and Mark Scheifele, who scored .59 playoff goals-per-game, via Hockey Reference. You can ding Tarasenko a bit for going without a goal in his lone 2012-13 playoff appearance, but even then, few matched his sniping rate.

An interesting spin-off for this discussion might be power play work.

Heading into the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tarasenko only scored six of his 22 postseason goals on the power play. So far during this run, he’s exactly even: five goals at even-strength, and five on the power play.

Amusingly enough, I’ve repeatedly wondered if the Blues power play would be more effective if Tarasenko was deployed closer to the net, rather than his more frequent spot on the point, and maybe that’s still true. Even so, it’s interesting to see that his power play production has been more potent during this postseason versus previous years. Tarasenko’s already clearly been a menace at five-on-five, yet if he can supplement some of his scoring with work on the man advantage, he’ll be an even more miserable matchup for the Bruins and other opponents.

With greater Blues’ team success, the hockey world has become more aware of the many quality talents in St. Louis. Tarasenko was already a prominent star, yet this run could push him closer to becoming a hockey “household name,” and that’s wonderful, because his clutch play is far from a fluke.

More from the 2019 Stanley Cup Final

Blues-Bruins Game 3 is Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET from Enterprise Center on NBCSN and the NBC Sports app.

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.