The New York Rangers signed free agent David Desharnais to a one year deal on July 4, 2017. Brought on as a depth signing, how did Desharnais do in his stint on Broadway?
After the frenzy of free agency began to die down, the New York Rangers set about filling out the rest of their roster for the season. One of those acquisitions made by General Manager Jeff Gorton was center Desharnais for one year at one million dollars.
Since the organization had traded away Derek Stepan, there were holes on the team at center. It was uncertain whether some combination of J.T. Miller moving to the middle and/or newly drafted Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil could get the job done.
Desharnais was acquired as a low risk, potentially high reward, player. His previous season with the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers was unproductive and curtailed by injury.
The Rangers had success in previous seasons in picking up free agents coming off of underwhelming seasons and having them produce. One only need to look to Michael Grabner or back to Benoit Pouliot for recent examples.
Desharnais is not known for stout defense as is often a hallmark of bottom six players. However, the hope with Desharnais was that he could give the Rangers three or even four scoring lines. In addition, the Rangers expected him to bolster their second power play unit.
A reasonable expectation was for Desharnais to chip in around 10 goals and 30 points. Those numbers aligned closely with his last full season in Montreal in 2015-16. That season, he scored 11 goals and 29 points overall, with three goals and five points scored on the power play.
With those expectations in mind, how did Desharnais perform?
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Traditional and Advanced Stats
First, how well did Desharnais produce over the course of the 2017-18 season with the Rangers? The diminutive center tallied six goals and 22 assists over 71 games with the team. While his point total was close to that aforementioned 2015-16 season with the Canadiens, he scored only a little more than half as many goals.
Two of those goals and seven points were scored on the man advantage, good for ninth overall on the team. This aligns well with his time played on the power play, which was 10th overall on the team.
For a look at his defensive impact, we’ll take a look at some of his advanced statistics.
| CF% | CF% Rel | GF% | GF% Rel | SCF% | SCF% Rel | HDCF% | HDCF% Rel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42.88 (17) | -3.8 (17) | 37.68 (17) | -7.3 (15) | 43.8 (17) | -3.45 (18) | 46.88 (16) | -2.86 (14) |
(Stats are 5v5, ranks are in parenthesis out of the 18 skaters who skated 41 or more games for the Rangers last season. Courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com)
(Stat Primer: ‘CF’ stands for Corsi For aka shot attempts (shots on net, missed shots and blocked shots) credited for a player’s team. Moving left to right, ‘GF’ is Goals For, ‘SCF’ is Scoring Chances For and ‘HDCF’ is High Danger scoring Chances For. The % indicates that stat is the percentage For that player’s team over the total amount (for and against). The ‘Rel’ indicates the difference for that particular between when a player is on the ice versus when they are off the ice.)
Despite hitting near his expected production, Desharnais’ advanced stats were absolutely abysmal last season. Desharnais is a case study where the advanced stats back up the eye test. He was often a noticeable defensive liability.
Conversely, Desharnais was extremely effective at the dot. The center won 55.06 percent of his faceoffs, which was good for 19th in the league (among centers who played at least 60 games). In addition, he was a net positive in penalty differential with a plus two (nine penalties taken and 11 penalties drawn).
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Deployment and Usage
As was typical of Alain Vigneault, he deployed Desharnais up and down the lineup, with varying linemates throughout the season.
Overall, he averaged 11:19 TOI/Game (Rank: 11/12) during 5 on 5, 1:26 TOI/Game (Rank: 8/12) on the powerplay and 13:03 TOI/Game (Rank: 11/12) in all situations. (Rank is among Rangers forwards who played at least 41 games with the team last season.)
Vigneault’s most curious usage of Desharnais came when Mika Zibanejad was injured. In late November, Desharnais expected to be a healthy scratch. However, the team ruled Zibanejad out of the game due to concussion symptoms. So instead, Vigneault inserted Desharnais directly into Zibanejad’s place in the lineup.
This decision, one that was made repeatedly when Zibanejad was injured, was a strange move considering the Rangers’ lack of center depth. Most teams simply slide their centers up a line. Desharnais also replaced Zibanejad on the powerplay.
Vigneault healthy scratched Desharnais a number of times but as evinced by his 71 games played, not terribly often (or arguably enough).
It should come as no surprise that his scoring was extremely inconsistent. Given that he only scored six goals, while playing in so many games, there were long stretches where he did not score.
This was starkly evident in the last quarter of the season. His last 21 games, he failed to score a goal and only tallied five points down the stretch. This was ultimately beneficial to the Rangers’ long term plans but it did nothing to encourage the front office to consider re-signing him.
Final Verdict
This evaluation is based on Desharnais’ actual accomplishments versus his expectations entering this season.
Again, the hope was for him to contribute around ten goals and 30 points and to chip in on the powerplay. From his season totals, he didn’t quite reach the goal quota at six, but he just about met the point expectation with 28.
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Unfortunately, Desharnais did not go above and beyond as some recent free agents signings. He did provide depth scoring but was often a defensive liability. He played pretty much “as advertised” this season.
Final Grade: C
(Additional stats and game information courtesy of NHL.com)