What Mancini has shown so far on new-look Vancouver Canucks defence
When the Vancouver Canucks traded J.T. Miller, much of the discussion focused on the first-round pick and Filip Chytil coming the other way, and for good reason. Chytil is an exciting young centre, and the first-round pick was flipped immediately for more help.
Not many people were focused on Victor Mancini, the young, rangy, right-handed defenceman. Perhaps they should’ve been.
In five games with the Canucks so far, Mancini has impressed. At 6-foot-3, he has the size to stand out and is a smooth skater, giving him strong building blocks to work with. He’s seemingly improved with each passing game, culminating in a massive performance last night which helped the Canucks earn a 4-3 shootout victory over the Calgary Flames.
The Canucks needed Mancini to be excellent as they were reduced to five defencemen early in the game after Connor Zary injured blueliner Elias Pettersson. Mancini delivered in a big way, playing a career-high 18:32 and picking up an assist on the game-tying goal late in the third period.
Mancini finished fourth among all Canucks in five-on-five ice-time and led all team defencemen in expected goals share. It was the highlight of what’s been a strong run with the Canucks so far.
With Mancini on the ice at five-on-five, the Canucks are being outshot but generating better looks than their opponents. The Canucks are controlling 64.59% of the expected goals, 57.14% of the scoring chances, and 64.71% of the high-danger scoring chances with Mancini on the ice. Those numbers all rank within the top three on the team.
The advanced analytics paint a pretty picture of the rookie’s performance thus far. While it’s a small sample size and, therefore, hard to draw too many concrete conclusions, there’s a lot to like about Mancini’s play.
As a right-handed defenceman, Mancini fills an organizational need. With Tyler Myers injured and potentially out for some time, the Canucks need Mancini to keep up his good play and chew up minutes behind Filip Hronek.
Within 12 months, the Canucks’ defence outlook has changed drastically. The emergence of the rookie Pettersson, Mancini, and Tom Willander’s arrival inching closer and closer means they suddenly have some young defencemen to be excited about.