SAN JOSE — As Mikkel Boedker pondered everything that went wrong in his first season with the Sharks, a solution materialized in the image of team captain Joe Pavelski.

At 5-foot-11, 195 pounds, Pavelski is an inch shorter and 15 pounds lighter than Boedker, and he definitely lacks the Danish forward’s blazing-foot speed. Teammates call Pavelski “Pokey,” as in slow poke.

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Nevertheless, the Sharks captain ranks second to Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin in total goals (145) since the beginning of the 2013-14 season. His lack of size and speed is offset by his willingness to go into the crease, take a physical pounding and score dirty goals off rebounds, deflections and shots from below the faceoff dots.

Over the summer, Boedker realized he’d need to find his inner-Pavelski to produce the snap-back season the Sharks so desperately need from him.

“It’s easy to look at him, right?” Boedker asked rhetorically, referring to Pavelski. “He knows where to go and where the goals are scored.

“It’s a mindset. It’s a mental game. You’ve got to have the willingness to go to where those goals are scored and he is a master at it.” For complete Sharks coverage

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If the Sharks are going to replace Patrick Marleau’s offensive production (27 goals, 46 points) this season and continue to be contenders in the Western Conference, Boekder will need to live up to the promise of the four-year, $16 million contract he signed with the Sharks in July 2016.

The Sharks signed Boedker in direct response to what happened in the 2016 Stanley Cup Final. The Pittsburgh Penguins skated laps around the more heavy, possession-oriented Sharks, raising questions about Team Teal’s ability to adapt to the speed infusion in the modern NHL.

Boedker, 27, was supposed to provide some of what was missing.

“He’s the modern NHL player, right?” Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “Speed, power, he draws penalties even if he’s not creating chances. He should be an effective guy for us.”

But Boedker’s effectiveness waxed and waned last season as he struggled to adapt to DeBoer’s brand of aggressive hockey after missing a large chunk of training camp to compete in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey with Team Europe.

In DeBoer’s system, all three forwards dive below the goal line on the forecheck, controlling possession through the cycle game and creating scoring chances with low-to-high plays that produce redirections and second-chance opportunities.

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As a result, Boedker developed a habit of skating to open spaces in search of shooting lanes instead of hounding the puck on the boards and attacking the net.

He finished the season with just 10 goals and 26 points in 81 games.

“Last year was difficult for him coming to a new team, not being there for training camp, having to learn a new system on the fly,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said. “And then you have a tough start.”

But systemic changes don’t paint the complete picture of Boedker’s disappointing season.

“There’s always news things,” Boedker said. “New teammates, new area, new jerseys, new chemistry. But that’s not an excuse. I looked at myself in the mirror and said: Last year wasn’t good enough.”

After he scored just four points (2g, 2a) in his first 27 games, Boedker put together a stretch in mid-December where he was arguably the Sharks best forward.

Then, he spent the rest of the season in and out of DeBoer’s doghouse.

He was a healthy scratch on Jan. 5 after a sloppy effort against the Los Angeles Kings two days earlier. Two weeks after that, on Jan. 19, he was benched for the third period of a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning after a soft defensive play led to a highlight-reel goal by Jonathan Drouin.

He hit rock bottom in the Stanley Cup playoffs, getting scratched for Game 3 and Game 4 against Edmonton after Joe Thornton rejoined the lineup.

Boedker’s inconsistency last season is even more mystifying considering he played for DeBoer in junior hockey with the Kitchener Rangers and received the head coach’s endorsement before signing with the Sharks.

Can his disappointing effort really be explained by the learning curve of playing in a new system or did he collapse under the weight of his contract? What role did confidence, or lack thereof, play in his downward spiral after he failed to produce early in the season?

“It’s a mixture of everything,” Boedker said. “Sometimes you just have an off-year, too. It happens. I’m not the first athlete to have it and I’m certainly not going to be the last athlete to have it.

“Take Sidney Crosby, for example. He had a bad half-a-season (in 2015-16) and everybody was up in arms, and now, he’s still the best player in the world.”

The Sharks don’t need Boedker to be the best player in the world, but it’s hard to imagine them contending if he doesn’t play a central role in picking up the slack left by Marleau’s departure.

And the ghost of Marleau will certainly haunt Boedker if he doesn’t produce.

Fair or not, the Teal faithful is already tying Marleau’s departure to the contract Boedker signed in 2016. The popular belief is that the Sharks would have had the funds to match Toronto’s offer to Marleau — three years, $18.75 million — if they didn’t have $16 million tied up in Boedker.

Although this is fictitious narrative — the Sharks insist that they wouldn’t have given a three-year deal to a 38-year-old player — perception quickly becomes reality, especially in a post-truth world.

Adding to the challenge, Boedker will literally be opening the season in Marleau’s position, skating on the left side of the Sharks second line alongside Couture and Joonas Donskoi, a combination DeBoer wrote down on a cocktail napkin soon after the Sharks signed Boedker in 2016.

“It’s really important for me to have consistency, especially with Patrick Marleau not being here,” Boedker said. “You’re not going to replace a guy that scored 500 goals in this league, but you can do your best and make sure that every day you come to work.”

Boedker brought his hard hat with him to training camp, scoring three goals in four preseason games. More important, he displayed a lot of those Pavelski-like qualities, going to the net, diving into the forecheck and knocking bodies in the hard areas.

“He’s putting himself in better spots, he’s putting himself in spots to score,” Couture said. “He’s attacking holes with the puck, without the puck and getting open.”

But preseason games are preseason games and Boedker will be judged by his ability to bring that type of game consistently.

He knows it, too.

“We can talk for a long time about it,” he said, “but I’ve got to prove it on the ice.”