After just 34 games, the Vancouver Canucks had enough, trading defenceman Vincent Desharnais to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It came hours after the club had swung a massive deal sending forward JT Miller and other pieces to the New York Rangers for a package including forward Filip Chytil and a 2025 conditional first-round draft pick.
And not long after the Canucks dropped a 5-3 decision to the Dallas Stars Friday night, the team swung another trade, sending defenceman Vincent Desharnais, forward Danton Heinen, an unsigned prospect and that first-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for defenceman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor.
Desharnais tenure in Vancouver came to a screeching halt, but the writing was on the wall early this year when he was made a healthy scratch after the Canucks’ first game of the season. By December, word started to come out that the they were looking to move on from Desharnais, now coming to fruition.
The 28-year-old broke into the NHL with the Oilers, drafted by the team in the seventh-round of the 2016 draft, working his way up hockeys ranks. He remained at the NCAA’s Providence College for three more years after the draft, turning pro in 2019-20. He spent his first season with the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder, before spending the majority of the 2020-21 season with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors.
After a full season there in 2021-22 and another 13 the following year, the Oilers recalled him to the big club and he never turned back. Offence wasn’t his calling card scoring one goal and 16 points in 114 games, but he was a big, strong, shutdown defenceman who put together strong performances often.
Desharnais struggled in the playoffs last year, falling out of the lineup late in the Western Conference Finals getting replaced by Philip Broberg. He wasn’t willing to take less money to remain in Edmonton, signing a two-year, $2-million AAV deal on the West Coast this summer.
For the Oilers, of course, this move has implications, as Pettersson was one of the players the team had reportedly been interested in ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline. In November, The Athletic’s Josh Yohe linked the Oilers — and Canucks — as two of the teams who had been keeping an eye on the 28-year-old.
Evidently the Oilers won’t be in on him with Vancouver swinging Friday night’s deal, and will be left scouring the market for other players that could fit. The Calgary Flames nabbed two potential options Thursday in forwards Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost, acquiring them from the Philadelphia Flyers for disgruntled winger Andrei Kuzmenko, still-budding prospect Jakob Pelletier and draft picks.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
