SHEER FUTILITY ON DISPLAY
Habs dominated in 4-1 loss to Sharks
After the San Jose Sharks’ morning skate Tuesday at the Bell Centre, defenceman MarcÉdouard Vlasic stopped to sign autographs for some young players standing outside the lockerroom who were wearing team jackets and tuques.
They were members of the West Island Royals peewee double-A team and their assistant coach is Ed Vlasic, MarcÉdouard’s father. The head coach is Pat Haney. Ed was MarcÉdouard’s head coach when he first started playing organized hockey at age five in PointeClaire on Montreal’s West Island.
“I don’t like dealing with parents anymore,” Ed said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon, explaining why he’s now only an assistant coach. “I only coach kids now ... not parents.”
Marc-Édouard started out as a forward as a kid, but Ed noticed his son was very responsible defensively. Ed, who played defence for five years with the McGill Redmen while earning an engineering degree, thought his son might also make a good defenceman and explained to him how the plus/minus stat works and the importance of keeping the puck out of your own net.
Marc-Édouard was quickly hooked on the stat and his new position.
By age seven, Marc-Édouard was a good enough defenceman to move up to the novice single-A level, which is set up for nineyear-olds. Today, he is one of the best defensive defencemen in the NHL and has an Olympic gold medal with Team Canada from the 2014 Games in Sochi.
Defencemen run in the Vlasic family. Ed met his future wife Marie-Josée Lord when she was a defenceman on an intramural team he coached at McGill. Marc-Édouard’s three younger brothers — Thomas and twins Charles and James — also played defence. The boys improved their skills on the backyard rink Ed would build every winter.
With the temperature at -18 C Tuesday morning in Montreal and 11 C in San Jose, Calif., MarcÉdouard Vlasic was asked if there’s anything he misses about Montreal winters after spending 12 seasons with the Sharks.
“I miss the snow at the holidays,” he said after the morning skate. “Christmastime, a little bit of snow is nice.”
When teammate Joel Ward was asked what makes Vlasic so special as a defenceman, his answer at first had nothing to do with hockey.
“His love for dogs,” Ward said. “I haven’t seen a man so passionate about his dogs in anybody I’ve ever seen.”
Ward then added: “He’s an unbelievable hockey player. I didn’t know much about him when I first came to San Jose (for the 2015-16 season), but practising with him every day, he’s a tough guy to get around. He’s a good guy and a good teammate and I’m just happy he’s on our squad. He just goes about his business, does his thing and he’s on to the next game. He does it pretty quietly, but he’s an unsung catalyst and a hero for us. A guy that probably doesn’t get a lot of praise, but he definitely does in our locker-room, for sure.”
While Vlasic — who had three goals, six assists and a plus-6 rating heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Canadiens — might not get a lot of praise, he does get a lot of money. The 30-year-old is in the final season of a five-year, US$21.25-million deal and has a new eight-year, US$56-million contract that kicks in next season.
But let’s get back to those dogs Ward mentioned.
“My wife had a dog growing up … passed away, then she got a golden retriever about five months old and then fell in love with dogs ever since then,” Vlasic explained.
Vlasic and his wife Martine, high school sweethearts who have been featured on the Hockey Wives reality TV show, now own three rescue dogs — two golden retrievers and a corgi.
“When you buy (a dog) from a breeder, they’re well taken care of,” Vlasic said. “They have a great life. Everybody wants a breeder dog, but it comes with complications after a while. And anyways, rescue dogs I think have a better behaviour than breeder dogs and dogs you buy in shops. If a breeder dog is not adopted, it stays with the breeder and eventually it will be adopted. Rescue dogs stay in crates all day and unfortunately most of them get killed because they’re overpopulated. So rescuing is by far the best route to go if you need a dog.”
Vlasic was selected by San Jose in the second round (35th overall) at the 2005 NHL draft and made the Sharks as a 19-year-old directly out of junior after playing three seasons for the Quebec Remparts, including with former Canadiens goalie Patrick Roy as his coach during his final year.
Despite growing up in Montreal, Vlasic was never a Canadiens fan. His two favourite teams were the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings and his favourite player was former Vancouver Canucks star Pavel Bure.
It’s a pretty good bet a lot of those Montreal kids waiting for Vlasic’s autograph after the morning skate were cheering for the Sharks instead of the Canadiens Tuesday night.