We’ve watched him for 3 years. Yes I get it, he’s 21 but I’ve watched Pronger and that development and other players. There were special things going on even when they we really young. I completely agree he has a lot of time and I hope he starts figuring things out.
The first month or two at least you’re going to love the skating and he IS becoming more confident offensively. He will join the attack and he wants to make the difference offensively. You’ll love that actually. Having Hamonic there will be a very good thing. Hanifin can skate well enough to get back almost every time. Problem is who he picks up on the way back. He loses guys, can’t figure out where to be, has very poor instincts on coverage in general. Doesn’t “feel” guys getting position on him. I’ve never seen any age defenseman so many times looking to the heavens trying to figure what went wrong and how the puck went in when the guy he originally should’ve had was the culprit.
He really lost steam in the second half and even the offense was gone. I remember a quote of his sometime over the last two seasons, where he admitted he had NEVER been coached defensively. They just told him to go do his thing. He basically started from scratch with the Canes which explains a lot about how he got here like this and how it’s gone since.
He is only 21. I know the things I say sound easily correctable and normal for a young d. All I can say is I’m not surprised the Canes gave up on him, and while it was still early enough to maximize some value. Even without the regime change I thought it very possible. The contract talk was a smoke screen, they barely talked to Hanifin. They made a decision early on he was a guy they wanted to use to make the changes.
And if there was one play where you just really wondered about his future with the Canes it was this one, which happened after the sale with the new owner watching and publicly vocally wondering what was going on with this team down the stretch...
The last goal at the 35 second mark.
https://youtu.be/QdQVtc3xwSc