“It looks like a pretty crowded blue line. Harman’s talked a lot already about how it doesn’t seem like Adam Foote would want to go, and I think Adam Foote kind of told us this himself when he was talking about that he didn’t want to go with a third pairing that just had young defensemen on it in Elias Pettersson, Victor Mancini or Tom Willander on that right side. Obviously they signed Derek Forbort to another contract, so that’s not going to be the case it looks like. Victor Mancini though, how do you see his season shaking out?” Quadrelli said.
Jeff Paterson added, “Well, you could barely take your eyes off him in Abbotsford in that Calder Cup run. I mean, big body, skates well, the confidence with which he played at the American Hockey League level was in stark contrast to what we saw after the trade as he tried to, you know, get his footing in a new organization. Traded at the NHL level for the first time. You can understand that comes with challenges. A big personality, likeable guy, wants to get better. At the AHL level, he was able to skate around and through everybody and generate offense and played in a bunch of situations and you can just feel the confidence oozing from this guy.
So yeah, there’s an opportunity there without a doubt. When you look, Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson, Tyler Myers…I think Derek Forbort probably starts just because they love his penalty killing utility and that’s why he was brought back and then, let the games begin.”