Expectations were higher when the Vancouver Canucks signed former Edmonton Oilers defenseman Vincent Desharnais in the offseason, but just over five months since the ink dried on the contract, things have not exactly gone according to plan.
According to a report from NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, Desharnais, who was a mainstay defender on an Oilers team that reached the Stanley Cup Final last season, could be on his way out of Vancouver in short order.
"Vancouver is trying to find a better fit for Vincent Desharnais," Friedman reported in his latest "32 Thoughts" column. "It just hasn’t worked out as everyone hoped."
Why Canucks want to trade Vincent Desharnais
Vincent Desharnais is going to be 29 years old at the end of the 2024-25 season; he is who he is as an NHL player at this point in his career. And that is a physical, stay-at-home defenseman who is 6-foot-7 and 226 pounds. Desharnais is extremely limited with the puck on his stick, and it was ultimately why the Oilers benched him in the Stanley Cup playoffs for Philip Broberg.
Desharnais's last game for the Canucks was against Broberg and the St. Louis Blues on Dec. 10, but even after Filip Hronek's injury, the former seventh-round pick was not a lineup lock for Vancouver. Desharnais was left on the bench for the Canucks' 4-0 shutout of the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Thursday night in favor of AHL journeyman Mark Friedman.
At 5-foot-11, Friedman is significantly smaller than Desharnais and has never played more than 26 NHL games in any given season in his career thus far, which tells you what head coach Rick Tocchet and the Canucks think of how Desharnais is playing at the moment.
And based on Friedman's report, it appears that Tocchet and the Canucks have already decided that Desharnais is not going to turn it around in B.C., so a trade is the next logical step. Desharnais is big, comes with playoff experience, and has a manageable $2 million cap hit. He will not fetch the Canucks any notable assets in a trade, but Desharnais is a worthy reclamation project for an NHL team in need of a bottom-of-the-lineup defenseman or injury fill-in.