Please stop the Tarasenko hot takes.

“Tarasenko is missing.” “Where is Tarasenko?” “Why hasn’t Tarasenko scored 50 goals in the playoffs yet?”

Just hold up. Stop. Tarasenko isn’t missing. Stop expecting Tarasenko to score a hat trick a night during the playoffs. I see the same thing happen to Ovechkin in DC during the playoffs, as well, so I know it isn’t just a St. Louis Blues Fan thing. Let’s take a deep breath and look at some of Tarasenko’s numbers. I pulled Tarasenko’s stats from both Corsica.Hockey and Natural Stat Trick. All the numbers are 5v5.

First, let’s randomly select four series of seven games each. I ordered all the games in which Tarasenko played from oldest to newest, assigned them numbers in that order. I went to the Google random number generator and set the minimum at 1 and the maximum at 76. Then I generated a random number, went to that game number in Tarasenko’s list and starting with that number selected 7 games. Then a generated another random number, went back to the list. If that number was within a previous 7 game selection of if the games for that series would overlap an existing series I created, I chose a new number. So I ended up with 4 seven game series.

Next, I just randomly selected 7 games from Tarasenko’s game list and grouped them together as random 7 games.

Finally, I compared the first three games of the random 4 series to Tarasenko’s performance in the first three games of this season’s playoffs. I also compared the random seven games to the first three games of this year’s playoffs.

As you can see, there is not a huge difference here in the numbers between randomly selected games and how Tarasenko has been performing so far in the playoffs. When looking at the on-ice stats for the random 7 games versus playoffs, Tarasenko’s crew has been generating shot attempts at a higher rate, but of course we all know that the goals just are not happening for this team right now. Comparing the first three games of the random series to this year’s playoffs, the on-ice numbers for the playoffs are in the same ballpark.

Comparing Tarasenko’s individual performance against the randomly chosen 7 games, he is lacking by a couple of goals but definitely generating more shot attempts per 60 minutes of ice time than he did in the random collection of his games. When comparing his individual stats for this year’s playoffs to the first three games of the random series, and there is really no difference between them.

Finally, let’s just take a look at how often Tarasenko scores, assists, and earns points this past season at 5v5. Tarasenko failed to score a goal at 5v5 in 62 games last season. He earned at least one assist at 5v5 in only 17 games last season. Finally, Tarasenko earned a point at 5v5 during the season in only 35 of his games played. That is less than half the games.

So, I beg of you. Please stop the “Tarasenko is missing” hot takes. Give the kid at least 7 games before you start dogging him. After years of listening to that sort of nonsense from DC sportswriters, I really don’t want to hear it about my favorite hockey team.

Thank you for your consideration.