This really shouldn’t shock anyone, should it? If you have to choose between playing in the AHL and playing with Ilya Kovalchuk and Maxim Afinogenov, who do you pick? Young Blues standout Vladimir Tarasenko chose to return to the KHL and the team on which he racked up 25 points in 30 games, SKA St. Petersburg. According to R-Sport, Tarasenko will be heading to the already impressively stacked team, who are in the KHL what the Pittsburgh Penguins are to the NHL. They’re the league’s premiere franchise with some of the top players, and now they’ve re-added one of the best to the fold.
The question remains: will Tarasenko return to St. Louis? Well, he didn’t have to come here to begin with, so the Blues do have that working in their favor. Kovalchuk won’t hang around after the lockout, either, and Tarasenko still will probably like to have the chance to play in a league with consistent top-tier talent. Regardless of the strides that the KHL has made recently, top-tier still means NHL.