The Vancouver Canucks reportedly had a young defenseman on their radar they wanted from the New York Rangers, but ultimately didn’t get.
The Rangers gave up Filip Chytil Victor Mancini and a conditional 2025 first-round pick in exchange for J.T. Miller, Erik Brannstrom and Jackson Dorrington.
The Canucks actually wanted defenseman Drew Fortescue instead of Mancini and there is a reason why Fortescue was not included in this deal.
“The Canucks were still looking for a defenseman in a deal. Ryan Lindgren, a pending unrestricted free agent who has struggled like many Rangers this season, was in an earlier version of a swap that was rejected,” Arthur Staple of The Athletic wrote. “The Rangers refused to include Drew Fortescue, their third-round pick in 2023 who is currently playing top-pair minutes for Boston College, the No. 1 team in NCAA hockey.”
This comes after there was reportedly a deal in the works between the Canucks and Rangers for Miller that ultimately fell through before the two sides agreed to a trade a couple of weeks later.
Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed these reports as he always knew there was a specific player the Canucks were hungry to acquire.
“I heard one of the issues in the first trade was that the prospect they were going to get who they eventually got in Mancini who I think is going to play in the NHL, but I had heard the issue was they wanted a prospect who was unsigned yet by the Rangers,” Friedman said. “I didn’t know who it was. Arthur Staple of The Athletic reported over the weekend that the Canucks asked about Drew Fortescue, who is one of the Rangers top D prospects…
“I thought it was interesting because I had heard Vancouver wanted a defenseman, someone the Rangers hadn’t signed yet, and the fact that Arthur had that in his article indicates to me that was a player the Canucks liked.”
The Rangers selected Fortescue in the third round of the 2023 NHL Draft. The 19-year-old has spent the last two years at Boston College.
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