SAN JOSE – San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic played in his 1,252nd career NHL game early last week, moving him into 100th place on the NHL’s all-time list.
It’s not totally clear when game No. 1,253 will come for Vlasic. Not only was he a healthy scratch Thursday in the Sharks’ 5-1 win over the St. Louis Blues, but the team is carrying eight defensemen on their active roster, with a ninth potentially on the way in Matt Benning.
The Sharks play the Vancouver Canucks on Monday to start a two-game road trip and it’s hardly a guarantee that Vlasic will be back in the lineup.
It’s an unusual spot for Vlasic, 36, who has now been a healthy scratch three times in 17 games. To boot, in the 13 games he has played, Vlasic’s averaged just under 14 minutes of ice time per game, more than three minutes less than last season.
Still, Vlasic is maintaining a positive attitude even though his role with the Sharks (3-13-1), at least for now, has been diminished to some degree.
“Won the last one, so I feel good. We feel good,” Vlasic said Sunday before the Sharks left for Vancouver, where they will play the Canucks on Monday. “I have fun with the guys, so I’m trying to help this team get out of it.”
Vlasic and Sharks coach David Quinn have talked about ways the 2014 Olympic gold medal winner needs to improve.
“He knows what we’re looking for,” Quinn said. “Just a little bit quicker, ending plays a little bit more. When he plays a bit more on his toes and is a little bit more decisive, everything’s better, just like it is for every player. His passing is better, his decisions are better.
“There’s really no magic formula. He’s handled it very well, he’s in a good spot mentally and he knows how we feel about him.”
It’s fair to wonder, though, how Vlasic will fit in long-term with the rebuilding Sharks.
Four other defensemen on the team are on one-way contracts and signed through next season, and three others are pending restricted free agents in their early 20s. Two other defensemen the Sharks have hopes for, Shakir Mukhamadullin and Henry Thrun, are now with the Barracuda.
Vlasic is in the sixth year of an eight-year contract that carries an average annual value of $7 million. General manager Mike Grier has said that if a Sharks veteran were to come to him looking to be moved to a win-now team, he would listen, with the understanding that any transaction must have the organization’s best interest in mind.
Moving Vlasic next offseason at his present cap hit would be a challenge, if not impossible. San Jose is already retaining salary on the Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson deals and might have to keep a sizeable portion of Vlasic’s contract on its books to trade him.
Doing so would prevent the Sharks from keeping salary on any other trade until after the 2024-25 season when the Burns deal expires, as the collective bargaining agreement prohibits teams from retaining cap hits on more than three players.
Buying out Vlasic’s contract, per CapFriendly, would save the Sharks over $3.1 million next season and $2.1 million the following year, although that would mean the team would have close to $10 million in dead money on its books for next season, and $8 million in 2025-26.
“When you’re not winning, then people start asking, ‘Oh, do you want to go to a winning team?’” Vlasic said. “Most players discuss those things in the offseason. My mentality is it’s too early to do that, and it would be wrong for me to think of something else when I’m here present with the team. I would be thinking of myself, which I would do in the offseason and not during the year when we’re trying to get out of it together.
“I’m a part of that and I want to be a part of that, and I love playing here.”