Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

73

Vincent Desharnais

San Jose Sharks Defense

Six-foot-seven, and 93 per cent of his shot attempts came from beyond 40 feet in a season split across three clubs.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2022-23EDM36055+1531000170.013:33
2023-24EDM7811011+354000412.415:44
2024-25VAN/PIT/SJS51033-945000280.015:55
2025-26 so far
Career16511819+9130000861.215:19

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

No goals and 3 assists in 51 games across Vancouver, Pittsburgh and San Jose — 3 points at 15:55 a night, with 45 penalty minutes.

48.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 33rd percentile, across 731 minutes. His ice went 30-32 against an expectation of 23.13-24.90, which for a third-pairing defenceman on three bad clubs is a respectable line.

The Finesse Game

28 attempts in 51 games at a median of 61 feet with 93 per cent from beyond 40 and none at all from inside 20, and no goals. 1 goal in 165 career NHL games.

The puck game is the limitation and it is severe. He does not carry it, the first pass is the safe one off the wall, and under a forecheck the exits stop entirely.

The Physical Game

6-7 and 225 and this is the entire player. He clears the front of his own net by standing in it, he defends the rush with reach rather than with feet, and he is not moved.

45 penalty minutes in 51 games is a high rate and a share of it is the stick foul that follows a man this size being beaten to the outside.

The Intangibles

A seventh-round pick in 2016 who spent four years at Providence College and three more in the American League, and did not play an NHL game until he was 26.

165 games in three seasons across four organisations, and three of them last year alone. He is 29 and a third-pairing defenceman whose size is the whole of the argument.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 731 minutes

Expected goals
48.2%
34th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.5%
29th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 30 for, 32 against. Expected: 23.1 and 24.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
3rd
Numbers
34th

The numbers rank him 31 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 with VAN · 498 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
SJS took 44.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.2% — 4.0 above the club he did it on.
The role
731 minutes at five-on-five — 31st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Erik Brannstrom53.1%46.5%45.7%
Danton Heinen45.2%49.1%47.9%
Teddy Blueger37.7%50.4%47.2%

53.1% together, 46.5% for him apart and 45.7% for Brannstrom apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

56 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 0 of them goals. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 93% from beyond forty.