Kurt Leavins posted an article in the Edmonton Journal recently, which provided some fodder for this post. You remember Vincent Desharnais, right? The guy who was drafted in the seventh round and thus never had much of a chance at making the NHL, pays his dues in the AHL and ECHL, then midway through the 2022-23 season earned a regular spot on the bottom pairing for the Oilers.
Well, a lot of folks, myself included, bemoaned the loss of Desharnais to free agency. The Vancouver Canucks for some bizarre reason, sought to severely overpay Desharnais in free agency to the tune of $4 million over two seasons.
The Canucks were clearly hoping that he would take his penalty killing, physicality, and defensive talents to a whole new level for them. If you refer to point six in Leavins's nine things, you'll see they are trying to unload Desharnais just now, as his play has not picked up from where it left off with the Oilers.
Desharnais has taken a step back defensively, going -5 after going +3 on the Oilers last season. Paired with Derek Forbort, in theory the Canucks should have a pairing that's full of veteranosity, solid defensive play, and a solid helping of physical play. At $2 million per season, you'd expect a bottom pairing d-man to be above average for his position.
Instead what's happened is Desharnais hasn't been bad, just ... not great. With the exception of his defensive play, he's still contributing in some way to the roster, just not to the extent his contract was expected. He currently sits sixth in blocked shots for the Canucks, although he's tied for third in BS/60 at 5.51, so he may move up a couple rungs from that. In terms of hits the picture is even dimmer, as VD is 14th on the Canucks in hits, but only 12th in Hits/60, which means for the most part he'll probably stay where he is unless he kicks up his hitting a notch.
Even on the penalty kill, a key skill for Desharnais last season, he is not listed as a regular on either unit for the Canucks. This is despite the fact he is eighth on the team in PK ice time with an average of 1:34 per game, which leads me to believe he may have been a regular on the Canucks PK at one time, but was taken off due to poor performance.
For the Oilers last season, Desharnais formed a fantastic third pairing, largely with Brett Kulak on the left side. I believe the Canucks also expected him to take a step forward offensively as well, as Desharnais had 11 points with the Oilers last season in 78 games, but has only been able to muster up a mere two assists in 21 games with the Canucks so far in 2024-24.
His replacement on the Oilers, meanwhile, Ty Emberson, has been able to carve out a role for himself and looks poised to move from a Group 6 UFA to a full fledged UFA after this season, only 19 games away from the 80 game threshold to qualify.
Unlike Desharnais, Emberson has been able to have a little more success, although not enough to move the needle per se. Emberson performs the same role Desharnais did last season, but unlike Desharnais, Emberson has a regular role on the first PK unit for the Oilers. For the record, he spends the second most time on the team on the PK, an average of 1:47 per game and the last of the single minute men, only Mattias Ekholm at 2:08 is higher. He's also third on the Oilers in hits with 46 vs. VD's 31, and is fifth on the team in blocked shots with 42 vs. VD's 30 for the Canucks.