It’s been another tough season for the Columbus Blue Jackets. They’re another year deep into a retool, that’s becoming more of a rebuild, with another head coach and a learning curve for his new system. Their top offensive players have been struggling and the team has again been lambasted by a variety of injuries.
Despite all this, there have been some positives. One of those has been the play of some of their younger players, especially the team’s young Russians. We’ve covered the importance of the Blue Jackets’ young Russians to their future success – in their forwards Dmitri Voronkov, Kirill Marchenko, and Yegor Chinakhov – but have yet to mention their netminder of the same nationality.
Daniil Tarasov, 24, has been in North America for a few seasons now, but 2023-24 is his first real chance to make a dent in the NHL. Now is the time for him to live up to the hype that’s surrounded him since making the jump across the pond.
Tarasov’s Career to This Point
The 6-foot-5 Tarasov was drafted by the Blue Jackets in the third round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. He spent the next couple of years of his development bouncing around in the Russian minor leagues and the Finnish Liiga with middling results.
His breakout performance overseas was in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with Salavat Yulaev Ufa in 2020-21. He had an 11-3-2 record and a .925 save percentage (SV%) in the world’s best league east of the Atlantic. That prompted an entry-level contract offer from Columbus and a debut with their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate Cleveland Monsters that same campaign.
Related: Blue Jackets’ Tarasov Primed to Become NHL’s Biggest Goalie Bargain
He played incredibly well in his four-game NHL debut in 2021-22. Despite a 0-2-0 record, he posted a .937 SV% which was lightyears beyond what anyone could have hoped for from the rookie. Then, staying healthy began to be an issue for Tarasov. He was limited to 15 games between the NHL and AHL in 2021-22 and only 28 in 2022-23. Again this season he’s been held out of Columbus’ first 30 games of the season because of a knee injury.
Now the word is out. He’s ready to return to the lineup and some of the prior obstacles to his success have been removed. Should he be able to stay healthy, the last 50 games of this season will be when he gets his first real opportunity to prove he’s an NHL goaltender.
Tarasov’s Opportunity with the Blue Jackets
Goalies tend to develop later than other positional players, so at 24 years old Tarasov is just now entering the sweet spot when goalies tend to break out. Fellow Blue Jacket Elvis Merzlikins didn’t even make his way to North America until his age 25 season and he’s carved out a full-time NHL role for himself.
The development path for Russian goalies specifically is far from set in stone as there have only been 12 to ever play more than 100 career games. However, from that list, New York Islanders star Ilya Sorokin, San Jose Sharks legend Evgenii Nabokov, and journeyman Ilya Bryzgalov all started to see success after hitting age 25. This would be the perfect season for Tarasov to start to get his legs under him in the NHL for a breakout next season.
His path to a regular spot with the Blue Jackets is finally unimpeded for the first time. He had always been the odd man out with Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo ahead of him. Now Korpisalo is out of the picture and while interim backup goalie Spencer Martin has looked good at times, he sits below .900 in SV%. That sets a remarkably low threshold for Tarasov to beat as the 58th-ranked goalie of the 79 who has strapped on the pads league-wide. Hitting .900 should be attainable as he’s looked good, posting a .915 SV% and only allowing nine goals in his four-game conditioning stint with the Monsters.
His current contract is a one-way deal, which suggests he’s in the NHL to stay. He’s locked in for another year after this one at $1.05 million, which is far from debilitating to the Blue Jackets’ current cap structure. And if he needed any more motivation to play well, he’s got it from a money perspective since he’s eligible to sign a contract extension as early as July 2024.
There is some urgency for Tarasov as he could soon be passed by another goalie in the Jackets’ prospect pipeline. 2022 fifth-round draft pick and fellow Russian Sergei Ivanov has been a brick wall in the KHL this season. At only 19 years old he’s spent time with SKA St. Petersburg and since become the starter while on loan to Admiral Vladivostok. He’s currently got the third-best SV% in the league (.937) with 19 games played. While undersized at 5-foot-11, he has performed much better than Tarasov ever did in the KHL and could be one of the next great goalies if he can translate that level of play to North America.
Tarasov returns to active duty with the Blue Jackets with his first real chance to be a part of the team’s regular tandem. It’s time for him to take the next step and grab this opportunity by the horns. He needs to prove that he can be of real value as the team continues to aspire to contend for more than just the top odds in the draft lottery every year.
