Due to the mismanagement of the Wings offseason giving him no spot in the lineup, and the incorrect views of the Wings coaching staff who thought Steve Ott was better than him, Anthony Mantha didn’t start the season with the team. In fact, it took two lines worth of forwards getting hurt for him to finally get a chance to crack the Wings lineup in a prominent role.

He definitely didn’t screw up his chance to shine, as he had arguably one of the best seasons on the team, and had a solid rookie season. He’s emerged as the team’s best forward looking to the future, and he’s become the prominent scoring threat that his own team didn’t think he was capable of. Mantha had constantly been criticized by Wings management, and he shut them up this year.

 

Mantha has certainly proved himself as a mainstay in the top six for the Wings future. While his overall production may fall in the middle six territory, that mainly comes from his lack of primary assists, which may have more to do with the lack of good players to pass the puck to. His goal scoring is without question at the rate of a first liner, while all on the defensive side of the game, he also falls into first line territory in driving offense and suppressing shots, while facing average competition, although a lot of his ice time was with Zetterberg.

 

Mantha hasn’t exactly had a lengthy career yet, but everything he’s shown thus far is quite promising. While he only got 36 points, he finished in a tie with Mike Green for fifth on the team in scoring, despite playing significantly fewer games than the rest of the team that got at least 30 points. Even better is that most of his production has come at even strength, so it shows that his production will continue to be consistent. His one concern is his shooting percentage. Only elite players can sustain a 12% shooting percentage, so we’ll see if he can continue to score at that rate, but it’s likely to go down a bit.

While Mantha only had a 53.26% CF%, it led the team among players consistently in the lineup, so it’s more of a sign that the team he played for was bad instead of him. He led the team in CF60 and CA60 too, so he’s the best on the team at both ends, theoretically. However, he played a good chunk of the season with Zetterberg, so that probably played a role in his success as well.

Mantha finished the season fourth on the team in GF%, although two players ahead of him were Alexei Marchenko and Thomas Vanek, who didn’t finish the season with the team, and the other was Zetterberg, his linemate throughout the season. He was fifth in GF60 and second in GA60, so he showed that he can be an effective two-way forward in the future, or at least compared to the rest of the team.

As impressed as I was with Mantha’s season, I don’t think we’re going to see a massive step forward. One of the biggest factors will be what the team looks like next season, but if it’s similar to last year, it will be tough to see him make a drastic improvement, especially considering his injury to end the season, his potential to regress next season, and the dreaded sophomore slump. I think the increase in games played and ice time will lead to a bit more offense from Mantha, but I’d imagine that it would lead to possibly a 40-45 point season, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if he stays in the 35 point range next year as well.

I don’t think you could’ve asked for a better season from Mantha, considering the criticism he was facing going into the season, the fact that the team seemed to try their hardest to keep him from making the team, and his ability to persevere through it all. He had an excellent rookie season masked by one of the deepest rookie classes in the history of the league, but it certainly shined bright in Detroit. Hopefully he can continue to improve going forward, because Detroit will certainly need it in what currently looks like a bleak future.