St. Louis Blues wing Vladimir Tarasenko will not return to his former KHL team SKA St. Petersburg, the team said in a website statement Friday.
The young forward was set to arrive in St. Petersburg and sign a lockout contract on Friday, but the player’s agent laid down new conditions which became unacceptable for the Gazprom-backed team, SKA said.
However, SKA expressed hope that Tarasenko would return and bring joy to the Russian hockey fans in the future.
Tarasenko, 20, was a first-round draft pick for the Blues in 2010 and moved to St. Louis in the summer after racking up 25 points in 30 games for SKA last season in the KHL.
Tarasenko is the son of hockey star Andrei Tarasenko, who played for Russia at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and was head coach at KHL team Sibir Novosibirsk when his son made his debut there in 2008.
SKA has still one vacant place for an NHL player before they fill up the quota of three lockout signings.
Earlier Friday, Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky joined the team following the New Jersey Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk, who inked a deal in St. Petersburg on Tuesday and was assigned the captaincy.
