23/24 Player Profile: Vincent Desharnais

Last Year

Desharnais began last season with the Oilers’ minor league team, the Bakersfield Condors, to start the year. He played 13 games, scoring 0-2-2, before being called up by the Edmonton Oilers in January.

To start the year, Desharnais was quite low on the depth chart. He had players like Broberg, Murray, Niemelainen, and Demers ahead of him on the depth chart as call-up options. Throughout the beginning of his season, he took a big step in effectively using his large 6’6″ frame to keep the opposition at bay and post some good defensive metrics down in Bakersfield.

A combination of hard work and outperforming others on the depth chart ahead of him, Desharnais earned a call-up to the Oilers to play his first NHL game on January 11, 2023. In his first game, he finished with 15:04 TOI and 2 PIM. Outside of that, he was fairly quiet, which is perhaps a good thing if you’re vying for a more permanent spot near the bottom of the lineup. Looking to play low-event hockey where you aren’t getting burned by the opposition’s offense is exactly what the Oilers needed and got from Desharnais.

After being called up, Desharnais never went back down to Bakersfield. He stuck with the Oilers, rotating through the Oilers lineup as they often played with seven defensemen in the lineup. Sometimes, he even cracked the lineup with only six defensemen. By the end of the season, he managed to crack the Oilers lineup for a total of 36 games, where he posted 0-5-5 with 31 PIM.

As the coaching staff gained trust in Desharnais, he was also used heavily as a penalty killer, averaging 2:13 TOI/GP on the PK. He ranked third on the team, behind Ceci and Nurse. Desharnais only averaged 13:32 TOI/GP in all situations, so you can see that he had heavy usage on the PK when he was in the lineup for the Oilers.

This Year

Desharnais will have a tough time making the Oilers lineup for opening night this season. The Oilers already have Nurse-Bouchard, Ekholm-Broberg, Kulak-Ceci locked up for the top 6. They all have contracts indicating they’ll be playing heavy minutes this season, except for Broberg. But the organization has indicated that it wants to give Broberg a push at the NHL level to really try and help him take a leap this season.

As of right now, Desharnais can be counted as the Oilers’ 7th defenseman. He’s 27 years old, so the Oilers shouldn’t feel too bad to have him with the big club for most of the year, jumping in and out of the lineup, sitting in the lineup for a few games at a time. Desharnais is currently ahead of other Condors defensemen like Niemelainen, Gleason, and Hofenmeyer.

Desharnais could start the season on the Oilers roster as the 7th defenseman, jumping into the lineup on nights where Woodcroft wants to run 11-7. However, I think we’ll be seeing less of that this year. Vincent will also be the first player to come fill in when the injury bug inevitably bites the Oilers’ defense.

A successful season for Desharanais would be one where he gets a shot at some point and proves to the Oilers management that he is worthy of being an everyday 3rd pair defenseman. Posting positive goal differentials in those minutes, using his big frame to be an important part of the Oilers penalty kill, and using his body to make life miserable for opponents.

If he does that well this season, the ultimate success would be to build enough trust from the Oilers to earn another contract and make Ceci (also an RH shot) expendable for the Oilers in the future, so they can leverage him in a trade next season for a valuable asset and cap savings.

This season, the focus needs to be on being the best replacement player available all season long for Desharnais and continuing to improve on his penalty killing skills.

Projection

Between injury, and running 11-7, Desharnais plays the whole season in Edmonton and gets into 43 games, going 1-6-8. Scoring his first career NHL goal.

Spends much of his time on the Oilers PK.

Next Up

Stuart Skinner