Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Anthony Mantha Is Growing Into His Role

02/12/2018 at 3:35pm EST

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

He was given an opportunity on the power play, and has turned that into a team-best eight power play goals by using his 6-foot-5, 225-pound frame as a goalie screen. He’s fit nicely onto a line with Henrik Zetterberg and Gustav Nyquist, and also has looked good playing next to Dylan Larkin.

Mantha’s average ice time of 17:04 is up from last season’s 15:54 average. Fellow young players Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou have seen bigger increases in their minutes, but that’s because they play both power play and penalty kill.

Mantha has the ability to stand out with his size and skill, be it tipping pucks down low or finishing a feed from Zetterberg like he did on Sunday. As he learns it takes hard work to do so regularly, Mantha could push for 25, even 30 goals this season.

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.