{"id":743692,"date":"2026-07-05T00:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T00:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/743692\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T00:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T00:37:12","slug":"capitals-unsuccessfully-tried-to-acquire-vincent-desharnais-at-last-seasons-trade-deadline-before-signing-him-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/743692\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals unsuccessfully tried to acquire Vincent Desharnais at last season\u2019s trade deadline before signing him in free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> raised some eyebrows when they made a four-year, $16.8 million commitment<\/a> to defenseman Vincent Desharnais<\/a> on the first day of NHL free agency.<\/p>\n

Desharnais has bounced around four different NHL teams since the 2022-23 campaign, playing the best hockey of his career last year with the San Jose Sharks<\/a>. While the big bet on Desharnais could look like the Capitals panicking to fill a need on the right side of their defense, the team has actually been long admirers of the 6-foot-7 rearguard, according to ESPN\u2019s Greg Wyshynski<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Per Wyshynski\u2019s reporting<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Washington also bid high for Desharnais, a physical defensive defenseman making $4.2 million against the cap for four seasons. The Capitals had attempted to acquire him from the San Jose Sharks at the trade deadline but were rebuffed by the surprise contender in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

With the Sharks, Desharnais started in the offensive zone just 33.7 percent of his five-on-five zone starts, the lowest mark among regular skaters on the team. Overall, San Jose was better with Desharnais on the ice at five-on-five than off of it, as he posted positive relative results in shot attempt percentage (0.02), expected goals for percentage (6.6), scoring chance for percentage (0.7), and high-danger chance for percentage (2.21).<\/p>\n

According to The Athletic\u2019s Dom Luszczyszyn<\/a>, Desharnais\u2019 teams have allowed at least 0.15 fewer expected goals against per 60 minutes while he was on the ice in each of the past four NHL seasons. With San Jose, it was a career-best 0.53, and the Sharks earned 50.6 percent of expected goals and 50.4 percent of actual goals with Desharnais on the ice. He was also a frequent penalty killer for the Sharks, receiving 3:14 of shorthanded ice time per game.<\/p>\n

With John Carlson\u2019s departure at the trade deadline, Trevor van Riemsdyk hitting free agency, and Rasmus Sandin suffering a long-term injury, the Capitals headed into this offseason with a clear desire to address their backend. General manager Chris Patrick achieved that goal through signing Desharnais and Justin Holl, as well as re-signing Timothy Liljegren.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother thing that Carbs had on his wish list to add this offseason was a defenseman with size who could kill penalties,\u201d Patrick told Wyshynski. \u201cThere were a few of them out there \u2014 some maybe more famous names than [Desharnais] \u2014 but he\u2019s just a guy that we\u2019ve liked really the last couple years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desharnais gives the Capitals a perfect option to play next to one of their ultra-talented, left-shot defenders, Jakob Chychrun and Cole Hutson. Caps head coach Spencer Carbery has already been thinking about where exactly the big blueliner will line up come the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know exactly what he is and his identity as an NHL defenseman,\u201d Carbery said Friday. \u201cI think he has a great understanding of that. We\u2019ve got two really offensive left stick defensemen in Jacob Chychrun and Hutty. And so to have Matt Roy at the forefront, but also Desharnais to be able to really give us a reliable, strong, physical, good defending defender like he is, is a really good fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his first meeting with the media on Thursday, Desharnais expressed his sheer excitement about joining the Capitals. He particularly praised the club for recognizing what type of player he is and not expecting him to be something that he is not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to play against the Caps,\u201d Desharnais said. \u201cThat\u2019s the type of hockey I love to play. Compete every night, structure, everyone knows what\u2019s happening, and every time I played against the Caps the last four years, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve seen. The other thing too is that I think that it\u2019s a good fit for me. The talks we had were very positive, where they saw me in my role, not someone I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to go to a team that wanted me for the role that I can bring. I don\u2019t want to be someone I\u2019m not, and I love that. Every talk, it was super positive and helping younger guys, Hutson, and trying to help his D side, and being able to play with guys that have more offense, and just kind of me taking care of our backend. Those were all things that were very interesting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desharnais will get a chance to prove the Capitals\u2019 faith in him right when he arrives for his first training camp with the team in the fall. He is signed through the 2029-30 season, joining Chychryn, Roy, and\u00a0Martin Fehervary<\/a> as the lone defenders on the Caps signed for that long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals raised some eyebrows when they made a four-year, $16.8 million commitment to defenseman Vincent Desharnais…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-743692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}