There are a number of significant trade bait candidates for this year's deadline. We saw Bo Horvat get traded last week to the New York Islanders and that seems to have kicked off trade season. The next big domino to fall is St. Louis winger Vladimir Tarasenko, who is headed to the New York Rangers:

Hearing #stlblues are trading Vladimir Tarasenko to #NYR.@DailyFaceoff

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) February 9, 2023

Tarasenko is an unrestricted free agent after the season and just turned 31 years old in December. He has 10 goals and 29 points in 38 games this campaign but has battled injuries for years now. Injuries and surgeries have kept him to 147 of his recent 260 regular season games, or roughly 57% of games. For this to work out, he has to stay on the ice. That is something that could be said of any acquired player for any team but when a guy has missed over 40% of his games in a four-year span, it's a bigger concern than most.

This is the full trade:

Conditional 2023 first, 2024 fourth, Sammy Blais, and Hunter Skinner are the return from the #NYR side of the Tarasenko/Mikkola trade

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) February 9, 2023

The condition, according to Frank Seravalli, is that the Blues will get whichever 1^st rounder the Rangers have (theirs and Dallas's) that ends up later in the draft.

As for the players themselves, let's dig in.

What The Rangers Get

We should delineate Tarasenko's career. There is everything up to and including 2018-19, and everything since. Let's start with the early portion.

In his prime from 2014-19, there were few better goal scorers in the NHL. That five-year span saw him fifth in the league in goals per 60 minutes, trailing only Alex Ovechkin, Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine, and Steven Stamkos. A big reason for that was his shot rate, as he attempted the second-most shots per minute of any player in hockey, behind only Ovechkin. Spanning 2016-2019, from CJ Turtoro's Viz, he had elite controlled zone entry numbers, elite shot rates, and very good shot assist rates (passes leading to shots):

[A3Z]

The goals, the shots, the transition, and the playmaking were all offensive skills that helped him be a juggernaut on that side of the puck: Evolving Hockey had him as a top-10 forward by expected goals-for impact at even strength from 2014-2019, and top-10 by actual goals-for impact. The defense wasn't good – 25^th percentile expected goals impact – but it was nowhere near a horrific, bottom-of-the-barrel mark.

Then the surgery came in 2019-20 and, to quote the 6-God, Nothing Was The Same. Since the start of the 2021 Bubble season, Tarasenko still has a strong shot rate but has gone from Literally Second In The League to the 90^th percentile. It's the difference between Ovechkin/Meier shot rates and Toffoli/Skinner shot rates (and things are even worse this year than usual as he has his lowest shot attempt rate at 5-on-5 of his career). Tarasenko has gone from top-5 in goals per minute to top-65, or super-elite to the 82^nd percentile. From Evolving Hockey again, he went from a bad defensive impact (remember, 25^th percentile) to absolutely horrific (the 3^rd percentile). When looking at just his 2021-22 season, per Corey Sznajder's tracking data, he went from the 75^th percentile in shot assists 4-5 years ago to slightly above average. He went from exceeding the 90^th percentile in controlled zone entry rates to not even a standard deviation above average, meaning he’s closer to the 75^th percentile. There has been an across-the-board decline in his performance in everything from shots to goals, from playmaking to transition, from his offensive and defensive impacts. He did see a jump in assist rate to 1.96 per 60 minutes these last three seasons compared to 1.34 the three seasons prior, but it's a wonder how much of that is just playing with really good wingers like Pavel Buchnevich. That assist rate – almost all of the jump coming from the 2021-22 season alone, mind you – is about all we can hang our hats on here. Everything else has declined.

So, what are the Rangers getting? Well, even with that decline, he's still a productive forward. His points per minute this year grade as an upper-end second-liner, and that was with a shot-rate crash. If he can add some more shots to his profile, he can easily produce at a first-line rate. The question is what this does to their power play. It is hard to imagine any of Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, or Artemi Panarin being moved off. That would seem to mean Vincent Trocheck is the odd-man out but then Zibanejad is responsible for all (or most) of the faceoffs and he's around 49% over the last three seasons. It might be something the coach looks at. Maybe this leads to two more even units with Tarasenko on PP2 with the Kid Line or something like that? That would be a reasonable outcome here.   

In that sense, this acquisition may not hurt the big stars already on the roster, Trocheck included. If Tarasenko is moved to the top line at even strength, and the second PP unit, it really doesn't change much except give the top-6 better wingers and another PP unit that could be successful.

All told, it’s a good move for Tarasenko. It gives him a better scoring environment, better line mates, and all that should help his shooting (and shooting percentage) rebound. At worst, the Rangers got an offense-only 25-goal winger. At best, they may have gotten a game-breaker if Tarasenko can really create magic with the likes of Zibanejad and Panarin.

Adding Niko Mikkola is just defensive depth for the Rangers. Barring a couple key injuries, he won't see more than the 16:39 he was getting in St. Louis and he's just good for some peripherals. Not much fantasy value there. However, it does free up room for Calle Rosen or Scott Perunovich (when healthy).

On the St. Louis side, things are getting dire. Assuming Ryan O'Reilly is traded once healthy, the team will basically be down to one effective line of Buchnevich-Thomas-Kyrou. After that, it's Brandon Saad and the Schenn/Barbashev/Neighbours/Acciari tier. This may strengthen the team defensively, given Tank's horrific defensive play, but it's a big hit to their offense. They have enough forwards for one viable PP unit and this was a team that had two full units a year ago.

Hunter Skinner is a fourth-round defenceman from 2019 who has spent more time in the ECHL than the AHL this year. His Dobber Prospects profile is here.

St. Louis getting Sammy Blais back is interesting because of his hit rates. He is averaging over three hits per game in his last four seasons. The Blues are devoid of real depth so if Blais can get 13-14 minutes a night, he could easily post three hits and a shot per game. There is something there for those in deep banger leagues. His re-acquisition doesn't really impact anyone of note in the fantasy game.

Who This Helps

Mika Zibanejad

Artemi Panarin

Vladimir Tarasenko

Alexis Lafrenière

Filip Chytil

Calle Rosen

Scott Perunovich

Who This Hurts

Brayden Schenn

Ivan Barbashev

Vitali Kravtsov

Jimmy Vesey

Pavel Buchnevich

Libor Hajek (waived)