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Canucks: Is the unheralded P-O Joseph a better depth signing than we realize?

Originally posted on Canucksarmy | By Stephan Roget | Last updated Aug 21, 2025 9:00 AM ET

The Vancouver Canucks were relatively quiet during the Free Agent Frenzy of 2025. Quiet, and yet still able to make at least one move that went mostly under the radar – the signing of 26-year-old defender Pierre-Olivier “P-O” Joseph to a one-year, $775,000 AAV contract.

By the nature of the depth chart of the team he’s just joined, Joseph is not expected to play a major NHL role in 2025-26. As a left-shot defender, he’s currently slotted behind all four of Quinn Hughes , Marcus Pettersson, Elias Pettersson, and De rek Forbort . He’s also got at least one prominent prospect LD applying pressure from Abbotsford in the form of Kirill Kudryavtsev.

In some ways, it seems as though Joseph might have been signed to sit as much as he was signed to play. The Canucks are expected to play the aforementioned four LDs ahead of him, in addition to RDs Filip Hronek, Tyler Myers , and probably one of Tom Willander and Victor Mancini.

That probably leaves Joseph as the 8D on the depth chart at best, and that translates to him spending a lot of time in the pressbox.

But is there reason to hope for more? When looking over Joseph’s personal history and body of work, a few positive traits stand out as reasons for a little bit of outsized optimism.

Despite being a young player coming out of the Pittsburgh Penguins system, Joseph was not drafted by Jim Rutherford. Instead, he was selected at 23 ^rd overall in the 2017 Entry Draft by the semi-defunct Arizona Coyotes. At the time, the book on Joseph was that he was highly skilled and intelligent, but incredibly slight, weighing in at over 6’ but only about 160 pounds at the time of the draft combine. Bulking up became an essential part of his developmental plan.

But he never got the chance to do it for the Coyotes. Approximately two years after being drafted – and having spent those two years back in the QMJHL – Joseph was dealt to the Penguins as a major piece in the Phil Kessel trade, along with Alex Galchenyuk. So, Rutherford didn’t draft him, but he did trade for him.

Joseph’s path to Pittsburgh was a rocky one. His 2019-20 professional debut with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was sidetracked by a serious bout of mono, which set back the weight-gain he’d already achieved. Then, right when he was getting back int o the swing of things, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, and the rest of the AHL season was cancelled.

He made his NHL debut when the league returned to play in January of 2021, and managed five points in his first seven games for the Penguins before cooling off. He’d then split that 2020-21 campaign and the 2021-22 season between the big leagues and the minors, struggling to find a permanent spot on a Pittsburgh blueline that was still making the playoffs with regularity.

Newly eligible for waivers, Joseph spent the entirety of the 2022-23 season with Pittsburgh, marking his true rookie season and a decent stat line of five goals, 16 assists, and 21 points in 75 games. All remain career highs to this point.

The 2023-24 season went a little worse for Joseph as he battled a lower-body injury, did a conditioning stint in the minors as a result, and only suited up for 52 NHL games and 11 points. Up until then, the Penguins had resisted the urge to ever place Joseph on waivers, but that didn’t mean they had any real long-term plans for him. At the 2024 offseason, they elected not to make Joseph a qualifying offer and instead released him to unrestricted free agency.

Joseph joined his brother, Mathieu, in St. Louis on a one-year contract to start 2024-25. But after producing just two points in 23 games, the Penguins made a bit of an odd move, re-acquiring the player they’d just let go in a trade for future considerations. Joseph finished out the season by playing 24 more games for the Penguins and then signed with the Canucks in the summer.

All in all, we’re at 40 points in 194 career NHL games and a general inability to find a permanent spot. But the fact that the Penguins still thought highly enough of Joseph to bring him back after ditching him just months prior? That’s just one of a handful of ‘silver linings’ that could give this signing some extra value for the Canucks.

Another is that Joseph has a lways had a pretty decent set of advanced stats. Yes, this comes with a caveat, as Joseph has almost always experienced sheltered deployment. That said, the fact that his Corsi and Expected Goals rates are all well above 50% in his career – except for that brief stint in St. Louis – says that he’s at least handled the deployment he’s received well. His 53.47% Corsi from last year in Pittsburgh was the second-highest among regular Penguins defenders, trailing just Conor Timmins.

And here’s Joseph’s quality of competition chart, courtesy of HockeyViz, which shows that Joseph’s QoC was a bit below league-average, but then so too was his typical linemate support.

Via The Nation Network

For a player the Canucks have signed to occupy the bottom-end of their blueline, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that Joseph has handled such responsibilities capably.

The difference between Joseph and the kinds of players the Canucks have previously signed as 8Ds and the like really comes down to skating ability. His speed and jump have been calling cards since his draft year, and they’ve continued to improve as he’s grown.

Very recently, this skating ability would have made Joseph stand out on the Vancouver blueline. GM Patrik Allvin and Co. have since taken steps to improve the footspeed of their defence, but, at the very least, Joseph fits in well with that plan.

There is also some real versatility in his game. Last year, the Penguins struggled to consistently ice a full complement of right-shot defenders. As a result, they tried nearly all their LDs on their off-sides, and didn’t find much success – except with Joseph. At the time, Joseph received praise from coach Mike Sullivan, who said, “It’s a little bit different than playing the strong side. If you don’t have that type of mobility, it’s not easy on your backhand. Under difficult circumstances – I think if he had his druthers, he would not want to play on his offside – but out of necessi ty, that’s what the team needs, and he embraces the challenge.”

Sometimes, when a player has a hard time finding a full-time spot in the NHL, it’s because their development has grown stagnant. That’s not really the case with Joseph. He’s consistently found ways to build on his strengths, adapt to new situations, and work on his flaws. Drafted around 160 pounds, he now plays at 185, and has drawn accolades for becoming more and more physical as time goes on. He even dropped the mitts for the first time last year and acquitted himself well enough.

Has Joseph lived up to the expectations of a 23^rd overall pick? No, probably not. But at the same time, he’s not exactly a bust, either. He’s a player who suffered some challenging circumstances to start his career, and yet who has still managed to achieve positive growth in most seasons. He’s someone that his former team thought highly enough of to re-acquire last season, and now his former GM, Rutherford, has signed him as a f ree agent. Clearly, Joseph manages to make lasting impressions.

So, what impression will he make in Vancouver?

The absolute best-case scenario for Joseph would be for the Canucks to decide that both Willander and Mancini need further development in Abbotsford. Under that scenario, the Canucks’ bottom-pairing is likely made up of two LDs in Elias Pettersson and Forbort. One can definitely envision Joseph as the 7D occasionally filling in for either of them on either side, and that’s probably his path to the most games played this season.

Should one of Willander or Mancini stick around for the duration, then their playing time would be a priority, and that probably translates to Joseph – and Forbort, for that matter – spending a lot of time in the pressbox. Unfortunately for Joseph, we have to i magine it’d be Forbort getting the first tap each time, leaving Joseph as an infrequently-appearing 8D, a la Mark Friedman last season.

Even then, however, injuries will occur, and Joseph will get his opportunities. Here, that versatility that he flashed last year will be key. If Joseph is capable of covering injuries on both the left and the right, he’ll obviously play more. And if the Canucks have two extra defenders capable of doing that in Joseph and Forbort, well then, we’d reckon they’re probably getting a lot more value out of the bottom-end of their blueline than do most NHL franchises.

Joseph was an unheralded signing, and that’s entirely fair, given some of the other UFAs on the market this summer. But that doesn’t mean he won’t make an impact in Vancouver. League-minimum depth signings don’t typically come with this many points of intrigue or potential silver linings.

This article first appeared on Canucksarmy and was syndicated with permission.

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