Desharnais ready to go after hurting hand in fight

While the Edmonton Oilers had the yellow caution sign out for Vinny Desharnais in the third period Saturday night against Colorado after he hurt his hand in a frenzied second frame scrap with Josh Manson, it appears Desharnais has the green light to be on the blue line Tuesday against his hometown Montreal Canadiens.

There were rumours that the big guy broke his finger fighting the Avalanche defenceman, but Desharnais was on the ice for practice Monday taking reps. He wasn't always paired with regular partner Darnell Nurse, however, as trade deadline pickup Troy Stecher got several looks there, along with other players.

But the 6-foot-7 defenceman whom captain Connor McDavid said is “a massive part of this team” talked like he would play.

The Oilers have had Nurse, Evan Bouchard, Cody Ceci and Brett Kulak play all 65 games and Mattias Ekholm has missed just two (hip and illness) this season. Desharnais, who has made huge strides with his overall game, has sat for two games.

Last season, Nurse, Bouchard and Kulak were in all 82 games and Ceci 80.

“I'm good. I was at practice ... there you go,” said Desharnais. “I just twisted my hand during the fight and the coaching staff thought it was better to be safe, so I'd be ready for playoffs and not make it worse,” said Desharnais.

The fistic fury with Manson in the crease area late in the second was a carry-over from Manson stepping up to smack McDavid on a rush down the left boards earlier. Clean hit, but hard.

“Tough fight for me. I don't know if I stepped on a stick or gloves, but both my feet went down quickly and he didn't really care if I was down. He kept punching. He caught me with a pretty good right and I got him with an uppercut,” said Desharnais, who has had four fights this season and had a dandy with Montreal's Arber Xhekaj last February with Xhekaj injuring his right shoulder and needing surgery.

“He (Manson) hit Connor and I didn't like it, but I'm not going to run around. At the net front, he just charged and he put me on my butt pretty quickly. He's a pretty honest guy. I was thinking Mans (Manson) might text me. Afterwards I was thinking `that was (Dave) Manson's kid,' '' said Desharnais, who had Dave Manson as his Bakersfield AHL coach before Manson became an assistant coach with the Oilers.

Desharnais is an unrestricted free agent and will need a significant raise in the off-season.

“He's a really cool story, obviously. He was a late round (183rd overall in 2016) pick and he played in the (East Coast Hockey League). He's one of the best draft picks we've had in this organization in a long time,” said McDavid.

“He's so solid, so hard to play against, so good on the (penalty) kill,” said McDavid. “And he's really good at breaking the puck out with little plays that maybe go unnoticed by people.”

Meanwhile, coach Kris Knoblauch wants to get Stecher into a number of games before the playoffs start in a month,

“I don't want a guy sitting for a month before needing him. It would be unrealistic to think we can do that and they can come in, perform and play well if they haven't seen a game for weeks,” said Knoblauch.