I'm not sure I would do any pruning at all, except to change the growth shape of the trees themselves. No real need to prune to promote leaf growth. I'd fertilize them with a fertilizer that was fairly heavy on the nitrogen, or if you can't find one like that a good 8-8-8 should do the trick...your problem will be that once new growth starts, your friendly deer will probably be back, so I'd make sure to address that issue as well.

The deer will be back.

A deer stripped a new cherry whip at my place this year. New deer fencing keeps the deer from coming back, and the tree recovered very nicely and has several nice new branches.

The tree doesn't need any pruning.

Peter,
Sorry to hear about the damage. It's frustrating, after all the work and time. You might consider an electric 3-D fence. It has worked well for me. It's the least expensive setup that works.

As far as pruning for a deer-infested world, search back to some of harvestman's posts. He made a good argument for shaping your trees so that there are no branches within five feet of the ground. Yes, it's going to take time to get to that point, and you'll need some kind of cage in the mean time, but without a fence, it may be the best plan.

Don't give up hope,
Marc