After being acquired from the New York Rangers in the JT Miller trade just 24 days ago, defenceman Victor Mancini made his Vancouver Canucks debut on Sunday evening against the Utah Hockey Club.

While he wasn’t the centrepiece coming back to Vancouver in that trade, the 23-year-old provided some hope for the club and its future on the right-side defence. Mancini is a 6’3″, 229-lb blueliner who uses his range to succeed in the defensive zone and isn’t afraid to get physical and use his body to his advantage. The former fifth-round pick isn’t afraid to jump up and join the rush for a chance at offence, either.

While this was the first game of his Canucks career, this wasn’t Mancini’s first taste of NHL action this season. After spending the following few seasons bouncing around the SHL and the NCAA before turning to the professional ranks. The Michigan native made the Rangers out of training camp this season, potting his first goal and adding four assists through just 15 games.

Mancini remained with the big club after the trade but never cracked the lineup. He then joined the Abbotsford Canucks, where he enjoyed top pairing and penalty kill time, adding an assist through his five games before earning his shot with the big club.

It was a fairly uneventful first shift for Mancini. He started on the wing as there were four seconds remaining in the Canucks’ penalty. He made a quick skate to make contact along the boards and had some nice positioning to help out behind the net. However, not enough out of him for a full clip.

We have to wait until his second shift before we see that:

Mancini comes off the bench and glides into the slot area. With the puck along the far boards, Mancini does his job as a defenceman to cover the middle of the zone. But notice his head; he’s keeping aware of his surroundings, ensuring he’s not getting beat on the backside rather than locking in and puck-watching.

Then, once the puck goes behind the net, Mancini is the first man on the puck. With two guys draping over him and little space to maneuver, Mancini makes a creative play to send it backhand past the forechecker behind him and to Marcus Pettersson, who has nothing but space and time to move the puck up and out of the zone.

Smart play from the debutant.

Here’s another strong display of defence from Mancini.

Jack McBain collects the puck in the neutral zone, which catches Derek Forbort out of position and challenges Mancini one-on-one. Mancini does a good job of staying in front of him, not allowing a clear shooting lane and is ready to get physical in case he tries to dangle him.

McBain rips a shot high and goes after his own rebound, but Mancini doesn’t allow him to beat him. Mancini stands him up, pushing McBain into a position that allows him to get to the puck first. He lifts his stick and makes the smart outlet pass to Derek Forbort to clear the zone.

Here we see a little bit of that jump in his game.

Dylan Guenther carries the puck in the zone, and Mancini uses his big stick to cut off any angle, leaving him no choice but to send a back pass to the trailing forward. He then tries to make a cross-ice pass to an open Barrett Hayton. Mancini has his stick in the lane and picks that pass off. And with a bunch of space in front of him, he turns up ice.

Mancini makes an outlet pass to Jake DeBrusk and then turns on the burners. The play likely wouldn’t have amounted to anything with four Hockey Clubbers back, but we’ll never know as DeBrusk dumps the puck in and Mancini peels off.

It’s nice to see a defenceman with speed try to join the rush like that. You know, who isn’t named Quinn Hughes or Filip Hronek.

We’ve got three clips from one shift coming up.

With the Hockey Clubbers now exiting the zone, Mancini makes some nice strides over to the middle of the ice to help in support. This leaves open ice on his side for Utah to move forward. Which might have been Mancini’s plan, as once the puck went over to Lawson Crouse, Mancini quickly cut off any angle and limited his space. (Let’s just pretend we didn’t see him fall.)

He then picks himself back up and grabs the loose puck, patiently waits to draw the forechecker and passes back to Elias Pettersson, who clears the zone.

We finally get to see some offensive zone time for Mancini. Now, it wasn’t much, but it was his only shot attempt of the game, so we must show it.

After a battle in the corner, Pettersson comes up with the loose puck and sends it back to Mancini. The defenceman has a nice little backpedal and uses his momentum to turn up and fire a shot toward the net. The shot doesn’t land on net, and honestly, it looks like it might have been high and wide, but it was a quick snap release.

His shot looked promising. If he keeps that up, he’ll have no problem potting his first as a Canuck.

We really liked Mancini’s body positioning here. Instead of avoiding contact, Mancini cuts off Josh Doan’s angle and gets in front of him to protect the puck. Now, again, Mancini falls over, and Utah maintains the zone. But the routine is there.

Later in the clip, Utah has the puck behind the net. Mancini uses his long stick to disrupt the forward, keeps close tabs on him and then edges him out along the backboards to retrieve the puck so Tyler Myers can clear the zone.

There was a lot to like from the young defenceman, all on one shift.

The fact that Mancini isn’t afraid to join the rush is nice to see.

It would have been easy for Mancini to just sit back and let Pius Suter take the puck up himself. But Mancini continues skating up ic, gets a nice give-and-go pass from Suter, and is now cruising through the neutral zone. His strides are fluid; he gains so much separation from the Utah forward and turns the rush into a 3-on-2.

We don’t love his decision to send a back pass to Dakota Joshua, which wasn’t a clean pass and results in a turnover. The better play may have been to pass to the player winding up for a one-timer, but the skate up ice was fun to watch.

It was a quick start for Mancini in the third period. Coming fresh off the bench and joining the play in the offensive zone, Forbort fires a shot off the shin pad of Josh Doan, who then gets sprung on a breakaway. Mancini uses some elite speed to catch up to Doan and minimize the scoring risk enough that Doan has to pass because his lane was now closed.

Great speed to be able to cut the threatening play off.

Mancini got some 4-on-4 ice time at the tail end of the penalties, and he looked good.

Pettersson rings the puck around the boards to Mancini on the opposite wall. He pinches up to collect the puck, uses his body to protect it and shovels it to Kiefer Sherwood. He then makes himself available for a pass back, but once it passes him to Pettersson, Mancini jets toward the net and is left all alone. If Pettersson had gotten the puck to him, Mancini would have just the goalie to beat and could have scored.

Get Mancini in some more open-ice situations. He would be fun to watch in the offensive zone in overtime.

He would only see a handful of shifts more in this game, but three of them came within the final six minutes of the game, which is a positive sign for the young defenceman.

It was quite a strong Canucks debut for Mancini, despite finishing with zero’s across the board, outside of his one hit through 13:56 minutes of ice time. However, the entire team really lacked any offensive firepower in this game.

We’re really just nitpicking to find something, as it was a promising debut from Mancini. However, we questioned some of his decision-making and would like to see him be a little stronger on the puck in the defensive zone.

It’s hard to really knock him on this as he gets knocked off the puck on the first defensive zone turnover, but instead of trying to bully his way along the boards and carry the puck, just nudge the puck forward a bit and allow Forbort to skate onto it. He could have even rang it hard enough around the boards to Dakota Joshua on the wing. Instead, he does a bit of both, and it goes into the corner for Guenther to pick up the puck and hold the zone.

Later in the clip, he can’t corral the puck off the boards behind the net, which leads to another defensive zone turnover.

There were more examples on the same shift.

This is just a routine pick-up behind the net, and instead of shoulder checking, Mancini takes his time and allows the Hockey Clubber to poke the puck off him. Guenther collects it, knocks Mancini’s stick out of his hands and can make the easy ring around the boards.

We will give Mancini his props here, as he is able to completely eliminate and box out the player at the net front to limit the scoring threat.

– Mancini is great at cutting off the angles. When the forwards enter the zone, Mancini uses a wide range of motion to quickly the angles. He isn’t afraid to get physical along the boards or in the open ice.

– Happy with how much he wants to join the play offensively on the rush. He looked threatening in the offensive zone. Would like to see him get another shot in the Canucks lineup – in hopefully a better offensive game for the team – to see what he can do.

– He’ll need to work on his skating. Overall, he’s one of the better skaters on the backend with his speed and the way he’s able to use his leverage. We just noticed he would often lose his footing. Now, it could be first-game jitters and him skating hard enough that he loses his footing. It shouldn’t be a real concern.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Were you happy with Victor Mancini’s debut? Let us know in the comments below!