Desharnais on How He Got Over Mental Struggles Last Year, Dickinson’s Biggest Defensive Challenge

Vincent Desharnais opened up.

That’s been the norm for the gregarious Desharnais over his career, but this time, the 6-foot-7 defenseman was honest about his mental struggles last year, from dealing with the expectations of his first significant NHL contract, signed with the Vancouver Canucks. He also got traded twice, to the Pittsburgh Penguins and the San Jose Sharks, and ended last season injured.

Desharnais only played seven games after the Sharks acquired him at the Trade Deadline, felled by an upper-body injury to end last season.

But he’s got a new attitude this season, after taking some time for himself this summer.

Desharnais also spoke on his shootout goal during Saturday’s scrimmage, playing with camp partner Sam Dickinson, and more.

Vincent Desharnais, on what was said during the shootout scrimmage:

Someone has to score at some point. The goalies were good, but I think there were 30-something guys who went, and you gotta score at some point, so the coach asked me to let the younger guys go, and then they kept going. It was fun, it was pretty funny.

Desharnais, on what he’s seeing from his group so far:

It’s fun. It’s fun to see the younger guys and the older guys mixing in together. A good example is my partner, Dickie. I think he’s 10 years younger than me, but it’s awesome. He wants to learn, he’s asking questions, and it’s nice to build a little chemistry with him. It’s a fast-paced camp—practices are fast, there’s a lot of compete, and that’s what we need. The last 2, 3 years, we’ve been at the bottom, it’s gotta change. That’s why we’re here, that’s why everyone signed here in the summer, they want the San Jose Sharks to move in the right direction, and I think that starts with training camp. It starts with practice and starts with having good habits, and that’s how you build those habits on a daily basis.

Desharnais, on what he’s working on personally:

For my game, just with everything that happened last season, I just want to play, and I just want to play myself. I just want to be Vinny that got to the NHL and made a difference with Edmonton, and I know I can make a difference here. I know I can help younger guys, I know I can help with my defensive skills and having good sticks, blocking shots, being physical. The big, big emphasis here is being solid on the PK. I would love for us to have a very, very strong PK—top 10 in the league—because that’s how you win and lose games.

Desharnais, on Sam Dickinson:

Well, one thing I told him right off the bat is that his skillset is a lot better than mine. Whatever I tell you, it’s just from my experience from things I’ve seen just from being around. I told him “At the blue line, you’re going to get the puck every time. Don’t you worry, you’re the one who’s getting points here.” But yeah, it’s fun. We can have fun and he works hard. He’s going to ask questions, and when I see things, I’ll go talk to him, and he’s very receptive and he wants to get better, he wants to be here. He’s a hard worker, and I love guys that are like that, because it makes you work hard as well and makes you want to help him more and makes you want him to get to that level.

Desharnais, on what he can bring to a defensive pairing with Dickinson:

I think just doing the dirty work for him, going to corners—I’m a bigger guy and I know I can create room. Obviously, he’s got a very good offensive-minded IQ. Whatever to make his game the easiest possible—me doing the dirty work, whatever it is. If it’s being physical, if it’s clearing the net, if its boxing out in front of our net, just making it as easy as possible. A big thing too that we’re kind of building is trying to talk as much as we can to make our job a lot easier. I’ve never seen him play in a real game and all that, so I’m excited to see this season how he’s going to play, how he’s going to develop, because he’s going to get better and better as the season goes on.

Desharnais, on what Dickinson’s biggest challenge will be defensively in the NHL:

I think the speed is the biggest challenge if you come in from the juniors. The speed in this league—you can be the best defenseman in juniors or in college, and you get to this league, and it’s a little bit of a challenge at first, because it’s such a fast pace and the top lines on each team are so fast. You just get to that pace and make sure you don’t get beat in one-on-ones and being hard in the D-zone. It’s a lot of work, it’s hard to get there, but it’s a key in this league. If you want to stay in this league and be a very good defenseman for a long time, you have to be able to defend well.

Desharnais, on what it was like coming to a new environment on short notice:

It’s not easy—not because of the players or coaching staff here, that’s the opposite, they made it a lot easier. It’s just a lot, getting traded twice, I was in Pittsburgh for I think 34 days, and it’s hard to find some comfort. You’re all alone in all of this and showing up here was cool to finish the season although I got hurt and that’s not ideal, but it was nice to be with the guys and coaching staff talking to you and making it feel like “Hey, we need you. You have a role here. Whatever happens at the end of the season, who cares, but once you show up next season, we have a role for you and we need you.” It was a good summer for me to flush all the negative that happened and flush it all and look back to see what I can take from it and move forward to build something. I’ve made a few changes and did a lot of mental work. I think when the season ended, I was kind of in a tough place mentally. I took a lot of time off in the woods and fishing with no phones or social media, and that was very helpful. I’m back and ready. I feel good physically and mentally, and I want to help this team turn around. I want to help this team get better and be competitive. I want teams to see the San Jose Sharks and go “Oh, not them again,” and not “Oh, San Jose Sharks, gonna be an easy one tonight.” A lot of the first three practices and the first three days of camp, I think it’s looking really well for us to be very annoying to play against.

Desharnais, on his talks with Mike Grier and Ryan Warsofsky:

Obviously, when you get traded twice in a year—and going back to Edmonton, not playing every game in the Stanley Cup Finals, playing the whole season, most of the playoffs, and in the end, you’re not in, you’re kind of questioning yourself. You change teams, things aren’t going away, you get traded and traded again, at some point your confidence is kind of taking a hit. You’re questioning yourself a lot and having that reassurance helped a little bit. But it doesn’t mean that they’re going to hand me that. We have a very competitive D core, and it’s good. It makes everyone push each other. Obviously, we had some good talks with them, but it doesn’t mean that they’re going to give it to me. I have to earn it, and I’m ready to do anything for that.

Desharnais, on seeing the San Jose Sharks adding to their D depth:

Well, it’s exciting. July 1st, I was excited. It took a little bit of time for the Sharks to get going, but I thought they had some great signings. We added a lot of a couple of older d-man depth, and I think that was excellent. Every team you go to, they’re going to have that, they’re just going to have good players and you just play your game, and whatever happens happens. If we’re playing 7, 8, that’s above my pay grade, I just show up at the rink. If I’m in, I’m in, and I’ll do everything I can to win. If I’m not, I’ll do everything I can to get back in.

Desharnais, on the news in Edmonton surrounding Connor McDavid:

Hey, I had enough drama last year. I’ll focus on myself right now, I’ll focus on training camp here, and I wish them all the best. To be honest, I don’t care that much, I just focus on here.

Desharnais, on where he improved mentally last summer:

Just the whole business aspect of the game. My first 2 years in Edmonton were minimum salary, I wasn’t really paying attention to all that, and I was just kind of happy to be there. Then I signed my first real deal, and expectations rose, and I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. Obviously, there’s a mix of lot of things that happened last season, but at some point, my confidence and being at peace with myself and with my thoughts—when I got home at the end of the season, I was not in a great headspace, and there was a lot of negativity and I was trying to get out of it, so I faced everything that happened. I kind of looked back into it. It’s like I mentioned earlier, what can I get out of it? How can I get better? What needs to change? I started working with a new sports mental coach and that helped a lot. Just like I said, it’s stupid, but go into the woods and go fishing and turn off, doing something else and being a normal human being like “Okay, life is okay. We’re all good,” and just reset. Now I have a “fuck you” mentality to just go out there and play. I have nothing to lose, I’m a 7th-rounder, 2016, 8 years ago, I shouldn’t technically be here, let’s just have fun. The thing last year that I got away from is having fun. I got caught in the business of things and trades and all that. Why I’m here is because I work hard and I have fun. That’s why I came back to it this summer, just keep working hard and have some fun.

Desharnais, on what the San Jose Sharks can improve on defensively:

Small details. It’s not that the guys were not working hard, I think it’s just working a little smarter. Warso mentioned it at the first meeting, I think he talked about competing and he said “I know you guys compete. We have to compete smart,” so when we track back and we skate back in our d-zone, we have to stop instead of curling a bit. The guys will work, but just the small details–the stick details—the small little things at the end of the day will cost you a goal that you can’t afford to give up, right? I think there’s a small bit, and that happens when you have a young team as well. If you have a young team, there’s going to be little details that aren’t as sharp, so I’m glad to see that in training camp, the coaching staff is pretty stingy about those small details, because they’re going to make a difference. Stop at the net for rebounds, tracking and stopping in our d-zone, having good sticks, communicating. Those are all small details, but by the end of the day, you can win or lose a game because of those. For me, the biggest difference this year for us is to just focus on those details and keep improving every game.

Watch the full interview here