While making it to the NHL is difficult, staying in the best league in the world is even harder to do.

Thomas Bordeleau has discovered that firsthand.

The 23-year-old has played parts of the last four campaigns with the San Jose Sharks, but just one this season, and 44 NHL games in total.

“There’s definitely frustration,” Bordeleau admitted about his irregular NHL opportunity. “I think if there’s no frustration, you shouldn’t be playing hockey.”

This year, especially, was a hard-luck one for Bordeleau. He didn’t get called up until Game 80 at the Calgary Flames, then suffered his first-ever concussion, which knocked him out for the final games of the season.

This concussion also caused Bordeleau to miss the San Jose Barracuda’s entire playoff run.

“It’s getting better everyday, and [I’m] just doing everything I can to speed up the recovery and hit the ground running this summer,” he said.

Unfortunately for Bordeleau, that wasn’t the only time he was derailed by an injury during the 2024-25 season. Just a few days into the San Jose Sharks’ training camp in September, he suffered a lower-body injury that prevented him from making an impression during preseason. As a result, he rejoined the Cuda when he was healthy, two weeks into their season.

“It really, really sucked. I wanted to prove myself in those exhibition games and those preseason games,” said Bordeleau.

This might spell the end of Bordeleau’s career in the San Jose Sharks organization. The 2020 second-round pick is a pending RFA.

The 5-foot-10 center-winger has been a prolific playmaker in the AHL, and productive in the NHL too. The 2023 AHL All-Star has 47 goals and 107 points in 161 appearances with the Barracuda, and six goals and 18 points in 44 games with the big club.

But his all-around game hasn’t quite clicked. And Bordeleau has also dealt with topsy-turvy handling in his time in the Sharks organization.

With Ryan Warsofsky taking over behind the bench this season, it marked his third NHL coach in four years.

When he came out of the University of Michigan in 2022, he played eight games under Bob Boughner. Next was David Quinn, who he played most of his games under.

“It’s definitely been tough,” Bordeleau said of different coaches with perhaps different messages. “It’s definitely not what I was expecting when I got drafted. It’s just something you’ve got to adapt to. It wasn’t the most ideal for me personally, but I didn’t put too much thought into that, and I was just trying to focus on what I can control.”

He actually one of just five San Jose Sharks, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Noah Gregor, William Eklund, and Mario Ferraro, who’s played for the last three Sharks bench bosses.

Bordeleau also recognizes that he’s playing for a different management regime than the one that drafted him.

After his NHL debut in 2022, he was under the impression, while still under the Doug Wilson regime, that “they were ready for me to play an 82-game season in the NHL.”

For what it’s worth, a separate source from that Sharks season believes that was the plan at that time. But in Jul. 2022, Mike Grier took over for interim GM Joe Will, representing the Wilson regime then. Wilson had stepped down in Apr. 2022 for medical reasons.

“Everything changed. Hockey, it’s a business. Doug Wilson had to leave,” Bordeleau recalled.

So what’s next for Bordeleau?

“We’ll see how the summer develops,” he said, not ruling out a return to the San Jose Sharks organization. “Keep getting stronger, keep getting faster, and keep doing exactly what I’m doing right now. I only had one game this year, but I felt great. I felt calm, felt [like I’m] where I should be.”

We’ll see if the rest of the NHL agrees this off-season.