Sharks extend Vlasic

The Sharks announced earlier today that burgeoning young defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic, still under his rookie contract through the 2008-09 season, has been signed to a four-year extension that will keep him in teal through the 2012-13 campaign. Financial terms of the deal are as of yet undisclosed.

Already a key cog on the Sharks' blueline, Vlasic is undoubtedly a critical component of the team's future and, with the contracts being doled out to young defensemen the past two summers, should receive somewhere in the ballpark of $3.1 million a year. Assuming those figures, the Sharks now have a respectable top three of Dan Boyle, Christian Ehrhoff and Vlasic on the back end locked up long-term at the reasonable annual rate of $13.1 million. The extension of Vlasic now, as opposed to next summer when the 21-year-old officially hits the restricted free agent market, is also a wise move, reducing the number of contracts Doug Wilson will have to deal with in the 2009 offseason when the likes of Torrey Mitchell, Ryane Clowe, Rob Blake, Mike Grier and Douglas Murray attain various levels of free agency.

EDIT It's quite possible that I am prescient. Or I peruse abysmally inaccurate hockey rumor blogs often enough to gauge information from one of them that miraculously sticks to the wall. Regardless, my estimate of $3.1 million was accurate as TSN reports that the 4-year deal is worth a grand sum of $12.4 million.