Two left shot defensemen who play similar roles for their respective teams

Hanifin, now Hanifin is on a better team so that might help but I feel like Hanifin is more of a #2 D while Sanheim is a good #3 D

That's fair

I chose Hanifin; but I did pause on the question first. I don't know enough about either of their respective games to make anything past a cursory opinion.

Went with Hanifin because he has played the tougher minutes for a legit playoff contender for a few years now; while Sanheim is at best a 2nd pair guy on a horrible team. Guilt by association I guess; but it proves that Hanifin can help his team win; which remains unproven for Sanheim.

Same here, all I've heard were claims from Flyers fans that Sanheim only just broke out this past season, and that was largely exemplified in his ability to "carry" Rasmus Ristolainen who was his defensive partner for much of a year. I don't know if you consider that much of an accomplishment, but I guess if Sanheim was still so unremarkable, Flyers fans wouldn't be sad to see him go

Hanifin does look better since he plays on the much stronger team, but I think if they swapped teams, Sanheim would look better than Hanifin even does now. Hanifin playing with Ristolainen seems like a disaster to me, while Sanheim playing with Ristolainen seems like slightly less of a disaster. I've always been high on Sanheim though (I think he's better than Provorov) so maybe there's some bias, but I would take Sanheim most days of the week.