Rangers sign 2022 5th rounder Victor Mancini to entry level contract

The Rangers have signed 2022 5th round pick Victor Mancini to a 2 year entry level contract, per Arthur Staple. Mancini, at the time, was a bit of an odd pick as an over-ager and a “prototypical big kid that doesn’t do much else” player. The Rangers have drafted a few of them in the past.

But I think with both Matt Rempe and Adam Edstrom’s successes, we can scratch that second part until we see what he does against professionals. The Rangers seem to have a focus on big kids that can skate, so perhaps we need to re-evaluate how the Rangers have approached drafting recently.

Mancini just finished his junior season at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where he put up a line of 4-6-10 in 40 games. They were his only 4 goals in his college career, and his 10 points essentially doubled his NCAA career output. But offense isn’t really Mancini’s game.

It seems unlikely the Rangers will strike gold yet again with a big kid that can skate in the later rounds. But maybe they’ve found a league-wide drafting inefficiency that they can exploit. That has happened before (see: Tampa).

It’s expected Mancini will join the Hartford Wolf Pack on an ATO to close out the season.