What would Stecher bring to the table in his place?
Troy Stecher is much more of a finesse player than Desharnais, and a defensively responsible player at that. He's made two trips to the playoffs in his career for a total of 21 games, a slight edge in playoff experience over Desharnais.
Both times Stecher did, well, if not knocking your socks off, certainly better than Desharnais has done boxcars wise in the playoffs. In 2019-20 while suiting up for the Canucks, he put up 2-1-3 with a +9 in 17 games with the Canucks, and in 2021-22 with the LA Kings - against the Oilers, no less - he put up 2-2-4 in four games with a +4 - and that was after putting up only a single assist in 13 games for the Kings in the regular season - talk about elevating your game when it matters most.
I'll use his data from his playoffs with the Canucks and Kings to see what patterns we can see in terms of physical play:
2019-20 - 3.9 hits/60 in the regular season, 5.18 hits/60 in the playoffs. 3.96 BS/60 in the regular season, 4.96 BS/60 in the playoffs
2021-22 - 3.48 hits/60 in the regular season, 4.41 hits/60 in the playoffs. 5.22 BS/60 in the regular season, 5.3 BS/60 in the playoffs.
So we have a much smaller player - Stecher is 5'10" and 184 lbs - so it's not surprising he isn't as physical as Desharnais. However, he still understands the need to elevate his game in the playoffs when he's done just that for two teams at two different times.