Basile Sansonnens had a busy 2025-26 season and is looking forward to taking another step in his development in his second full year of pro hockey.
Selected 221st overall in the 2024 draft, Sansonnens was a seventh-round swing by the Vancouver Canucks’ scouting department as he displayed skill in the defensive zone and was a good skater for a 6’4” defenceman. This past year, he made the jump to Switzerland’s top professional league and represented his home country at the World Junior Championships.
He has enjoyed the process of being a Canucks’ prospect and remarks that it is wonderful to have someone who you can rely on and be able to ask questions when there’s a speed bump or roadblock in his development. Sansonnens works with both Mikael Samuelsson and Mike Komisarek, but the addition of Alex Edler will surely also provide support for Sansonnens this year.
This coming season will be the first time that Sansonnens will play for the same team in two consecutive seasons, and that excites the 19-year-old because it helps him bring more confidence into training camp after earning trust from the organization as a teenager last year.
“I was starting to get really confident at the end of the year, and now I am going back to the same team where I know the staff, and I know the players. So, that’s much easier than having to change everything and learn so much at the start of the season. I’m excited to get started in the fall and keep building on what I did last year,” said Sansonnens.
Sansonnens went from the U20-Elit league in Switzerland to the Rimouski Oceanic in the QMJHL to the National League in Switzerland over the past three seasons.
His first full season of pro hockey was a big step up from the QMJHL, and he quickly learned how fast pros can take advantage of mistakes on the ice. It was also another adjustment period for him to return to the big ice used in the NL compared to the North American-sized ice in the Q.
“You need to have good feet, and always be alert,” said Sansonnens about playing pro. “If your brain is out for two seconds, you know it’s going to be bad.”
He liked the way he improved throughout the season and was content about how he was able to play his physical style against men as a teenager himself. Sansonnens stands at 6’4” and is well over 200 pounds, and plans to have another big offseason of training so that he can be even bigger and stronger and lean on his good skating and physicality to continue taking steps to improve his game so that he can one day make the jump to North America to be a pro.
Every time he plays on the North American-sized ice, he feels his game will be even better; he is confident in his work in wall battles and says his long reach feels even longer on a rink shrunk from what he is used to playing on in Switzerland.
And for those who do not know how different the rink is, the Swiss National League played on a 60-by-30-metre rink. When you compare that to a North American-sized rink of 61-by-26-metres, that is a stark difference in width. Four meters (or 13 and a half feet) of space is a lot to lose for an attacking forward and a lot to gain for a big defenceman like Sansonnens.
Next season, Sansonnens wants to show that he can do more with the puck and help create more offence with his shots from the point. He has a heavy shot that can beat screened goaltenders or bring rebounds to his teammates around the net, but feels like he can do a lot more than he did last season with Lausanne.
