Defenseman Vincent Desharnais and winger Nathan Smith are signed by the Vancouver Canucks.
Desharnais has plenty of experience killing penalties and looks to make an impact within the Canucks bottom-two pairings. Desharnais gives Vancouver another towering presence on their back end as he’ll join forces with 6-foot-8 Tyler Myers and 6-foot-5 Carson Soucy.
Desharnais was originally a seventh-round pick, 183rd overall by the Oilers at the 2016 draft. He’d spend parts of the last two seasons with the Oilers before now moving further west to the rival Canucks. Desharnais should get a chance to become a steady penalty killer with his new team, likely on the second unit.
The club also signed Nathan Smith to a one-year deal worth $775,000. The 25-year-old had 31 points in 60 games with the AHL’s Tuscon Roadrunners, his first full season in the AHL after brief stints in Arizona the previous two years. He should be viewed as one of Abbotsford’s better goal-scorers going into 2024-25.
Vancouver Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin has been very busy on day one of free agency. Along with Desharnais, the team has added Jake DeBrusk on a long-term deal, as well as forwards Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood on multi-year deals. With Desharnais now also on the books, the Canucks management brass is actually over the cap by roughly $534,000 and will surely be using their long-term injury reserve slots before the start of next season.
The Canucks finished last season with a 50-23-9 record and lost to Desharnais and the Oilers in the second-round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
As for the Oilers, they signed free-agent defenseman Josh Brown to a contract earlier in the day, which essentially became the writing on the wall for Desharnais’s future in Edmonton.
