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Sharks’ Vlasic believes Kessel suffered ‘no side effects’ for slashes

vlasicgetty

The guy who felt Phil Kessel’s slashes seems OK with the Toronto Maple Leafs forward’s preseason suspension, but a player who committed a similar offense and received a different punishment isn’t so happy.

San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic was fined $8,378.38 for slashing Minnesota Wild winger Dany Heatley in the waning moments of a game back in April, but didn’t receive a suspension. The 26-year-old blueliner told the Mercury News that, overall, Kessel got off a lot lighter than he did.

“Three pre-season games? Who cares? I’m sure he’ll be ready for the regular season,” Vlasic said. “There’s no side effects, no consequence to what he did. He doesn’t lose one cent or doesn’t lose one regular season game for vicious slashes.”

Vlasic was pretty matter-of-fact about his own self defense argument back in April, as you can see from this CSNBayArea.com video:

Overall, it seems like Vlasic believes that it wasn’t a fair ruling.

“I don’t understand why he would get what he got and I would get what I got, but I don’t make the rules,” Vlasic said.

Follow James O’Brien @cyclelikesedins