He's been good but nothing remotely close to what you're trying to make it out to be. In a large part, I think its more about Tanev than it is Hanifin. The security and confidence he gives young players is undeniable.
At least they are gelling esrly and look to be a very strong pairing. Hell, look at how much Tanev is activating up in the play, or carrying up past the center red line and making passes to teammates! Chris Tanev "of old", aka Canucks era would 90% of yhe time look for the long stretch pass out of his , zone dump pucks in deep for forwards to chase down. There is a new surge in Tanev's game, jumping up on loose pucks in our zone and rushing it up to start viable offensive plays. Hanifin's play, positioning, and showing capability and maturity in clearing bodies out of our net-front and scoring zones, is giving Tanev confidence to activate. They are a great pairing so far.
A positive for growth in the Flames as a team, irregardless of fans expectations for how many points Hanifin should be getting or scoring on his own.
Chris Tanev is showing a huge improvement in Travis Hamonic's previous 2 seasons as a Flame. Yes, they both play a very similar style and have shown similar skills, play style. So far so good that Tanev is being durable and he is improving his play every couple games. Not like with the Hammer you would get glimpses of a great game every now and then, but then would digress quickly to mere tough guy in our zone, shot blocker, clears pucks away and then disappear for a few games.
