{"id":28437,"date":"2018-05-16T13:56:47","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T17:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=28437"},"modified":"2018-05-16T13:56:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T17:56:47","slug":"david-desharnais-joins-the-khl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/16\/david-desharnais-joins-the-khl\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Rangers free agent David Desharnais Joins KHL&#8217;s Lokomotiv"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Centre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/deshada01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>David\u00a0Desharnais<\/strong><\/a> is packing his bags for Russia after announcing he will be joining KHL team Yaroslavl\u00a0Lokomotiv for the 2018-19 season. He will join former NHLer <strong>Max Talbot<\/strong> in Yaroslavl. Desharnais most recently played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/rangers\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Rangers<\/a>, ending his season with 28 points in 71 games.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Former <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/canadiens?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#canadiens<\/a> F David Desharnais is headed to the KHL. Will join Max Talbot with the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TVASports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TVASports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Louis Jean (@LouisJean_TVA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LouisJean_TVA\/status\/996366724583841792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 15, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>David Desharnais Joins the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in KHL<\/h1>\n<p>Throughout Desharnais nine-year NHL career, he played mostly for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/canadiens\/\" target=\"_self\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> and carried brief stints with the Rangers and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a>. Desharnais was a healthy scratch several times last season by the Rangers due to his inability to produce points in a bottom-six role. His lacklustre defensive play didn&#8217;t do him any favours either. The undersized forward, standing at only 5-foot-7 clearly was at the end of his NHL career&#8217;s rope. Considering the Rangers are now focusing on developing a younger team, the 31-year-old certainly didn&#8217;t fit into those plans.<\/p>\n<p>Desharnais was picked up by the Rangers for a one-year, $1 million contract. The hope was that he would deliver about 10 or so goals on the fourth line and bolster the second power-play unit. The Blueshirts had seen wild success in picking up free agents in the past (see<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/grabnmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Grabner<\/a><\/strong>). However, this would not pan out as well. Desharnais failed to score a single goal in the final 21 games of the season. The centre was also a defensive liability, a -22 on the season. To add to former Rangers coach <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/vigneal01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alain Vigneault<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s book of secrets, Desharnais often directly replaced <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/z\/zibanmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mika Zibanejad<\/a><\/strong> when the Swedish-center was injured. The two are hardly\u00a0comparable, exposing just how big the Blueshirts&#8217; hole at centre ice was (and still is).<\/p>\n<p>Desharnais went undrafted and signed as a free agent with the Canadiens in 2008. His best season came in 2011-12, earning a respectable 60 points in 81 games. Unfortunately for the Canadian-born forward, he was never able to live up to his minor league points in the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"7lPPSnEYRqB0Na3afipzuQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/926954410\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7lPPSnEYRqB0Na3afipzuQ',sig:'3VZhLFQ0owThVVeSzwzIv-Li7qpO0AKAYrBX_u6L_7c=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'926954410',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Centre David\u00a0Desharnais is packing his bags for Russia after announcing he will be joining KHL team Yaroslavl\u00a0Lokomotiv for the 2018-19 season. He will join former NHLer Max Talbot in Yaroslavl. Desharnais most recently played for the New York Rangers, ending his season with 28 points in 71 games. Former #canadiens F David Desharnais is headed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2004,"featured_media":29036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2003,34],"tags":[525,152,48],"class_list":["post-28437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rangers","category-khl","category-news","tag-david-desharnais","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-new-york-rangers"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}