Beauty of Vlasic’s D in the details

2:15 PM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Stanley Cup finals are moving west for Game 3, which means that the San Jose Sharks can now deploy one of their most important weapons with more control. Having the last line change as the home team for the next two games will afford San Jose the chance to get Marc-Edouard Vlasic out on the ice against Sidney Crosby as much as possible.

The Team Canada teammates are currently foes in the most important matchup of the NHL’s championship series. Crosby has been the best player in the Cup finals so far, but Vlasic is certainly holding his own too, making the kind of little plays that go unnoticed by many fans but not by the people standing behind the bench.

“What a fan is watching for is the spectacular,” said Team Canada coach Mike Babcock this week when asked about Vlasic “What the coaches are looking for is: Do you do it right every single time? And, when your team is on the ice, are you always in the offensive zone? The way [Vlasic] plays the rush, the way he brings the puck out, the way he skates, the way his stick is on the puck, the way he sees it first … He’s an elite thinker and he makes his partner that much better.

“You’re always looking for players who make the players around them better, and he’s one of those guys,” added Babcock, a two-time Olympic champion as a coach. “The elite thinkers, the guys who have high hockey IQ, they do that. And he’s one of them.”

Fans on the East Coast who didn’t see many late-night Sharks games may not yet truly appreciate Vlasic’s defensive talents. But when former Team Canada Olympic GM Steve Yzerman put him on the roster for the Sochi Games in 2014, many hockey observers took notice. And when the 29-year-old Vlasic was among the first 16 players selected in March for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey by current Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong, it was considered a no-brainer choice.

“He’s just extremely efficient,” Yzerman said of Vlasic earlier this week during a phone conversation. “A very intelligent player. The Nicklas Lidstrom-type, where he doesn’t blow you away with …

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