SAN JOSE – More than three months after training camp began, it remains a mystery when San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic will play again.
Roughly five weeks after Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said Vlasic could be activated during an upcoming six-game road trip that lasted until Dec. 12, the veteran blueliner remains a non-roster player at the midway point of the season with no clear indication as to when he might suit up for a game.
Warsofsky said Wednesday that Vlasic, who practiced with a few other Sharks players on New Year’s Day, is still working on his conditioning but that the team does have a plan for him to play.
“It’s building him up,” to a place, Warsofsky said, of where “we’re all comfortable with putting him in.”
“We’ve talked to Marc, and he understands the situation and where we’re at, what we expect, and where he needs to get to, to play,” Warsofsky added.
Reporters asked to speak with Vlasic on Wednesday, but the Sharks denied that request, citing club policy on not making non-roster players available.
The 37-year-old Vlasic, now in his 19th NHL season, missed all of camp with an upper-body injury, which he described in October as an issue mainly involving his upper back. But he has regularly been taking part in Sharks practices and morning skates since at least late November, an indication, it seems, that he’s close to full health.
On Wednesday, Vlasic skated alongside a small group of Sharks players, including forwards William Eklund and Collin Graf and goalies Alexandar Georgiev and Yaroslav Askarov.
Vlasic said in October that he hoped to be back by the end of that month. While that didn’t materialize – and the Sharks have never had a timeline for Vlasic’s return — there have been no apparent setbacks in his recovery, either.
Still, Warsofsky has remained steadfast in recent weeks by saying that Vlasic needs more practice time with the group before he can be added to the Sharks’ 23-man roster.
“Obviously the conditioning was the big thing,” Warsofsky said Wednesday. “Missing training camp, skating a lot here as of late, so I think it’s getting closer and closer. But that was a big thing. It’s getting over the conditioning hump.
“I think we’ve seen a better Marc the last few days. So, he’s getting closer.”
Asked whether Vlasic might be ready to play again in the next couple of weeks, Warsofsky said, “It’s hard to say, I’d like to see him in some more practices, but we’ll see.”
Once Vlasic is close to playing again, the Sharks could ask him to start a conditioning stint with the Barracuda. However, Warsofsky said the team had not yet reached that point.
Vlasic, now in his 19th NHL season, needs to play just four more games to reach 1,300 for his NHL career. His 1,296 games in a Sharks uniform is the second-most in team history, behind only Patrick Marleau’s 1,607. Only 72 players in NHL history have played at least 1,300 games.
Vlasic’s playing time has tailed off in recent years and he spent considerable time last season as a healthy scratch. Vlasic averaged over 20 minutes of ice time per game for the first 14 seasons of his NHL career, but that number dipped to 16:17 last season as he played 57 of 82 games.
The Sharks (11-23-6) have seven defensemen on their roster right now, but only six are healthy. Jake Walman has a lower-body injury and will miss his fifth straight game Thursday when the Sharks host the Tampa Bay Lightning, looking to snap an eight-game losing streak.
If the Sharks wanted to create a roster spot for Vlasic once he is deemed fit to play again, and assuming no other defenseman is traded or has to be placed on injured reserve in the meantime, they could assign Shakir Mukhamadullin back to the Barracuda. Mukhamadullin, 22, does not require waivers to be returned to the AHL.
Warsofsky said Vlasic, who has one year remaining after this one on his eight-year, $56 million contract, can still help the Sharks.
“He’s played in this league a long time,” Warsofsky said of Vlasic. “He was one of the better guys at shutting down teams’ top players when he was in his prime, and I thought he did some good things last year and had some good stretches.
“It’s really hard when you miss training camp, and then you get thrown into the fire in January to play against some really good teams,” Warsofsky said. “The big thing is we’ve got to continue to build him up and get him into some practices. Obviously, practices are a lot different than they were in training camp, so continue to build him up.”
EKLUND UPDATE: Warosfsky said Eklund, who has missed the last three games with an upper-body injury he sustained in the Sharks’ Dec. 23 game against the Vancouver Canucks, will not play against the Lightning. Warsofsky said the plan is for Eklund, who is feeling better, to skate again on Thursday and then be reassessed.
