Did anyone at LucasFilm acknowledge specific cases of borrowing from EU/Legends?

Question

• We know that Lucasfilm officially stated that they would use Legends/EU materials as (re)sources for new Disney canon:

  Creators of new Star Wars entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe. (Official Darth Mickey Order 66 New Disney Canon announcement)

  @Hoopserwan It's all non-canon, but it all exists as a resource that could be used down the line (Heddle on Twitter).

• We know that they likely did use EU/Legends as a resource, for The Force Awakens.

  But that knowledge is basically fan deductions, not first-hand information.

As such:

Did anyone at LucasFilm (or licensed material creators) acknowledge specific cases of borrowing specific information/ideas from EU/Legends into Disney Canon?

(as opposed to generic fact that "yes we will/do/did")

Just to clarify, the question is about canon material created after Disney transitions, NOT Lucas's own use of EU material in Episodes I-VI or Clone Wars.

Answer 1

Yeah, there's been some of this

Grand Admiral Thrawn is, of course, the obvious example; his history in the Expanded Universe was discussed by Dave Filoni at Celebration London 2016, as reported by Entertainment Weekly:

"Let's take a moment and expand the universe a little," Filoni said as the lights dimmed and the [Rebels season 3] trailer began to play. (You can see it yourself above.)

[...]

"You couldn't have grown up a Star Wars fan without encountering Thrawn in Heir to the Empire," Filoni said. "It was a dark time when there weren't any more movies, and it blew our minds that there could be more."

Pablo Hidalgo, one of Lucasfilm's story development executive, has been known to do this on occasion on his Twitter; there's a great example from May 2016 where he makes an (admittedly non-specific) admission that he and Dave Filoni, among others, tend to borrow from the EU:

@BLloydReese there was a TON of stuff from EU filoni stuck in.

@pablohidalgo Yeah, the EU stuff primarily came from EU readers like Filoni or myself.

One example, from the Rogue One Visual Guide (written by Hidalgo) are the Yelsain Tree Dwellers; the planet Yelsain, with its giant trees, was entirely unremarkable in the EU. However, Hidalgo apparently made great use of it back when he was running tabletop Star Wars RPGs, so added it to Disney canon with an updated history out of a sense of sentimentality:

@pablohidalgo In my old campaigns, I blew out the history of the Yelsain Tree Dwellers. Couldn't resist bringing 'em back.