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Marc-Edouard Vlasic 2023 player review: Statistical resurgance

After the 2021-22 season, defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic looked like he would never return to his peak powers as one of the best shutdown defensemen in the league. In fact, he was a prime candidate for a buyout. But, new General Manager Mike Grier kept Vlasic and dealt Brent Burns instead, giving the Sharks some much-needed cap breathing room.

While the rebuild word was never uttered at SAP Center, everyone knew 2022-23 was not a Stanley Cup season. Keeping Vlasic around was, at the very least, a body to fill a roster spot.

But Vlasic seemed to know he could be better.

Vlasic’s 2022 – 23 production

Vlasic was relatively healthy this season, missing just the final three games. He played 2 minutes, 24 seconds during the final home game against the Edmonton Oilers on April 8 before the Sharks’ staff shelved him for games 80-82.  

Whatever the injury is, it is not expected to hinder Vlasic going into next season. Following the April 8 game, Head Coach David Quinn told San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng that it was a short-term injury and Vlasic would not need surgery.

Games Played G A P PIM +/- SOG Shooting %
78 1 17 18 16 -14 67 1.5%

Vlasic scored just one goal this season and had 17 assists. While the numbers are not overwhelming, they are better than the last three seasons. Last year, he had 14 points in 75 games. In 2019-20, he had 15 points in 70 games. As seasoned Sharks fans know, Vlasic is not and never has been an offensive juggernaut.

Like many of the Sharks’ defensemen this season, Vlasic had a round-robin of partners, but he played the most with Matt Benning. Benning and Vlasic were first and fourth on the team, respectively, in defensive zone starts, which means they were the pairing most trusted by the coaching staff.

Vlasic earned that trust, doing better defensively this season than in recent seasons.

Vlasic’s RAPM 2022-23

Note: In both instances below, we ignored the second chart because it looks at how a player impacts the team while on the power play, and as a general rule of thumb, Vlasic does not earn much time on the power play.

While not the defensive stalwart he was in his prime, Vlasic was an asset to the Sharks’ blueline this season.

Looking at Evolving Hockey’s RAPM chart, you can see that Vlasic was slightly above league average at even strength. What’s more, he did well in both expected goals for per 60 minutes (xGF/60) and expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60).

This is a huge rebound from the three seasons prior (2019-2022) when Vlasic was a liability on the blueline.

When Evolving Hockey breaks down Vlasic’s performance from 2019-2022, you can see that while he was still a slight positive on xGA/60, everything else detracted from that.

Vlasic was among the league’s worst when it came to his team scoring when he was on the ice (GF/60) and didn’t fare much better when it came to generating scoring chances for his team.

All this is to say that this season was much better for Vlasic than past seasons.

Rating Vlasic’s season

Did Vlasic play well this season?

Yes.

Did he play up to his $7 million AAV contract?

No.

The criticism of Vlasic has been for the past few years and continues to be the fact that his play does not earn his paycheck. Vlasic makes $500,000 more per year than Boston Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm, a player with a much higher offensive upside. Vlasic makes $900,000 more per year than Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang.

According to The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman, who created player cards for every NHL player this season, given Vlasic’s performance, his contract should be around $4.4 million.

That puts him in the neighborhood of the likes of Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy, Vancouver Canucks defenseman Filip Hronek or New Jersey Devils defenseman John Marino.

While Vlasic performed much better this season, he still did not live up to his contract.

Vlasic’s future with the Sharks

It’s a contract that the Sharks will have to live with through the 2026-27 season unless something changes. The good news is a very important piece of Vlasic’s contract kicks in this offseason.

Up until now, the 35-year-old defenseman had a no movement clause. He could nix any trade proposed to him. However, starting this offseason, he must submit a three team trade list to the Sharks. That’s a list of three teams he will accept a trade to, no matter what.

It’s not the best of circumstances, but it’s a start.

The Sharks have a few options with Vlasic.

Option one is that the Sharks trade Vlasic. Make no mistake, this trade is a salary dump and with the league dealing with a very small cap increase, if any, the price is high. The Sharks would have to give up either a high draft pick or a top prospect to get the deal done and San Jose might have to retain salary as well. Of all the options, this might be the least likely for a team looking to rebuild its prospect pool.

Option two is that San Jose buys out Vlasic. This is probably the worst option out of all of them since even if the Sharks buyout Vlasic, the team is on the hook for 2/3 of his remaining contract spread out over eight more years (Source: CapFriendly Buyout FAQ). That’s nearly a decade of dead cap money.

The most likely option is option three. San Jose keeps Vlasic in teal next season and burns another year off the contract. The team is rebuilding or resetting or whatever pretty word management wants to put on what’s happening. It will be a year or two until this team is competitive again.

For his part, Vlasic is still a capable NHL defenseman, and San Jose doesn’t have enough to go around yet. With very few top prospects up for an extension this offseason (now that the Sharks have traded Timo Meier), keeping Vlasic will not hinder the team.

Sharks fans should cross their fingers and hope Vlasic can have another season like this one. One where he’s not a defensive liability and helps shut down opponents consistently.

Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the player reviews for the San Jose Sharks. We realize there were a lot of guys rotating into and out of the lineup and some of the key depth players were traded. As a result, Fear the Fin plans to focus on the players that are 1) still with the Sharks and 2) played 20 or more games for San Jose this season.

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