The pleasant surprise of the first four and a half months of the Red Wings’ 2016-17 season has been Thomas Vanek. I’ve been a fan of Vanek since his days in Buffalo and I was quite happy with the ‘low-risk’ one-year deal that they signed him to in the summer. I expected Vanek to come in and immediately help our top-6, but I didn’t expect him to basically drive the offence night-in and night-out.

I would like to think Ken Holland knew what he was doing when he signed him to a one-year deal. It was either we get into the playoffs and it’s because Vanek helped us get here or we don’t get in and we can trade him at the deadline. Obviously we now know it’s going to be the latter.

I think a lot of fans knew, myself included, that there was a good chance Vanek could be moved at the deadline, but the question was “what can we get for him?” Well, he has 14 goals and 22 assists (36 points) in just 44 games and is a top-6 winger that so many teams in the playoff hunt covet. As March 1st approaches, he will be one of the most sought after rental players and for once the Red Wings will hopefully be the ones hosing another team in a rental player deal, because the shoe has been on the other foot in recent years—David Legwand, Erik Cole, Marek Zidlicky to name a few.

In what has been a disappointing season (to say the least), Vanek has really impressed at the offensive end and should help the Red Wings pull in another 2017 1st Round pick— a pick that they desperately need.

Most pleasant surprise for me has to go to Anthony Mantha. I’m pleasantly surprised on a few fronts. Surprised that the team actually called him up and kept him. When even AA was starting the year in the press box I figured  Mantha was screwed. But alas he got the call. I was surprised again when he not only got put in a top-six role, but was promoted to the top line with an equally impressive Zetterberg this year. Wow, isn’t it crazy that when you put your prospects in a position to succeed, they actually can achieve what the organization was hoping for?

He’s got the hands and size to be successful and is much faster than expected for his frame. He’s still knocked off the puck too easy but his shot, his release, his vision and the damage he can do in front of the net is all pleasantly surprising. The team has done nothing but produce bottom-six role players for years now that it’s incredibly refreshing seeing how effective Mantha has been on the top line this season. If he can manage to not be relegated next year by one of the many poor roster decisions this team has implored all year then I think we can expect even greater strides forward and build ourselves a base to work with. Mantha and AA have proven they can handle the workload and should only be seeing more responsibility put on their shoulders as the season moves on. The Wings are in a position for the first time in a long, long time to let the kids play, make their mistakes and start oiling the gears of a smooth transition into the next incarnation of this organization.