[Textcritic]

It feels like Mangiapane more than deserves his own "I like" tribute. (Although I see that virtually all the others have fallen off of the first several pages.)

On Sunday's game, Cassie Campbell commented about how good Mangiapane and his line have been playing in recent games, and she openly made a comparison between how he plays the game with Bad Marchand—not the cheap-shotting, trash-talking, face-licking, finger-biting Marchand; rather, the top-line scoring winger.

So, how great would that be?

Marchand has been such a good player for such a long time that I think it is easy to forget where he came from. He was Boston's third-round pick in 2006 @ #71 overall. Marchand is 5'9" and 181 lbs, and when you watch how he skates and competes, the comparison that Campbell drew from him to Mangiapane becomes fairly obvious: both are stocky, strong, tenacious players who never quit moving.

Brad Marchand began his professional career in 2008–09, and played a full season in Providence. He posted 18 G and 51 Pts in 79 games as a 20-year-old rookie.

Marchand began his NHL career the following year, splitting his time between Boston and Providence, but scoring only a single assist in his first 20 NHL games. He scored 32 Pts in 34 games in the AHL that year—the last of his minor-league career.

Marchand became a NHL regular in 2010, and in his first full season at the age of 22-years-old he scored 21 G and 44 Pts in 77 games. For the next four years Marchand was a solid but unspectacular second-line player, averaging 23 G and 45 Pts before breaking out in his 27-year-old season as a top-line player. Since then, he has become a fixture for +85 points on one of the best lines in hockey.

So, how about Andrew Mangiapane?

Well, the Flames didn't nab him until the sixth round in 2015, 166th overall. Mangiapane is 5'10", 184 lbs, and—like Marchand—when he broke into the NHL, he plays a tenacious, hard-forechecking puck-pursuit game, and he never stops skating.

Mangiapane began his professional career when he was 20-years-old in 2016, and scored 20 G and 41 Pts in 66 AHL games. In 2017–18 he played his second season in the AHL, and scored an impressive 21 G, 46 Pts in 39 games. He started his NHL career in 2018, but failed to make any discernible impression in his first ten games with the Flames, but he then followed that up by scorching the he AHL at the start of 2018 with 9 G and 17 Pts in 15 games. It was good enough to earn him a callup in his 22-year old season, and he managed to score 8 G and 13 Pts down the stretch last year in Calgary.

This year, Mangiapane is 23-years-old and is scoring at nearly 0.5 pts/GP: 17 G and 29 Pts in 65 games. However, since the ASG he has scored 9 G, 14 Pts in 17 GP. He is fearless and tough, he moves well, he sees the ice really well, and he has a nose for the net. He sure looks like he could one day become a player in the same mould as Marchand, but without the ######-baggery for which he is most famous.

Will it happen? Who knows.
Could it happen? I see no reason why not.

I like Andrew Mangiapane.