It’s Time For Anthony Mantha To Have A Big Season In Washington

Anthony Mantha is entering his third season with the Washington Capitals. This season will be his second full season with the team. He was acquired at the trade deadline by the Washington Capitals during the shortened 2021 season which obviously means he was only around for about half of that season, not even that much to be honest.

While last season was a full season for him in D.C. he still only played in 37 of the 82 game season. Just ten games into the season he injured his shoulder. That happened on November 4th, he returned on March 3rd. That injury cost him nearly four months and sat him down for 45 games.

In the 37 games he played last season he was able to score 9 goals and put up 23 points. That is a little bit of a mixed bag for Mantha. If he had played the entire season on the scoring pace he was on he would have scored 50 points. That would have been a career high for him. Just barely, but a high nonetheless. His current career marks happened twice, in back to back years in 2017-2019 where he scored 48 points in those two seasons.

His nine goals would have put him on pace to score about 19 goals over 82 games. That is somewhat disappointing. When you think about Mantha, you think about goal scoring. That is really what he has been described as for most of his career. A big guy who can score goals.

That really was the reason they traded him for Jakub Vrana at the deadline of 2021 wasn’t it? Mantha is a bigger guy than Vrana, he is a more physical player than Vrana, probably does more overall than Vrana, and he can score goals. Vrana may have the higher scoring ceiling but Mantha was a better fit for this Capitals team.

Lets be clear as well, 19 goals over 82 games is not awful. At the same time the Capitals will need more from Mantha this season and going forward. The Capitals need Mantha to not be a 20 goal scorer, they need him to be a 25-35 goal scorer. Anything more than that would be terrific, anything less, in my eyes, is disappointing.

Mantha can clearly do this. He scored 24 goals in 80 games for the Red Wings in 2017-18. He followed that season up by scoring 25 goals in just 67 games the next year. Then during the COVID stopped season he scored 16 goals in 43 games putting him on pace for his first 30 goal season.

Mantha was 22, 23 and 24-years-old during those seasons. He is now 28. You want to see that next step for him. If he can put up those goal totals during his development years you hope he can put up 30+ in his prime seasons. You also want to see him do a little more on a team with more talent than the ones he played on during his Red Wings days.

He can do more. When you look at his fancy stats everything looks good. When you look at Capitals who have played over 600 minutes over the past two seasons Mantha leads in the team in CF% and it’s not even close. His 55.01 CF% is way above the second place guy at 52.30 which is Lars Eller.

His SF% or shots percentage is 57.30%, also first on the team, and is nearly 4% better than the next closest Cap. He is among the leaders in GF% or goals for percentage. While he is on the ice he and his linemates get chances as well. His SCF% is 54.19, and his HDCF% is 52.86, both good.

Mantha can also create chances. Over his 51 games as a Washington Capital he has 84 individual scoring chances. That is a really good pace. Compare that to a guy like Nicklas Backstrom, who over 102 games over the past two seasons has 107 chances.

The potential is still there for Mantha to not only be good, but be a very important player for this Capitals side. The only thing that potentially needs to change is he needs to play more.

He played in 37 games last season, and that is enough to find some chemistry on the team for sure. But again, he was coming off a major shoulder injury. That is never easy for anyone to come back from.

This season, lets hope he can stay healthy and play 70+ games for the Caps this season. Lets hope he can finally find some long term chemistry with a player or two on the same line. Lets hope that line would be blank-Strome-Mantha on the second six.

I really think this could be a big season for Mantha. It is no doubt an important season for him. If he has a down season or another injury filled season then it could be a problem going forward. I think the Caps would have to look at his long term future on this team if either or both of those were to happen.

Everything is there for him this year. It’s a new season. He is healthy. There are still plenty of talented guys around him, even with some big injuries in the top six. Now lets see him put it all together.

It’s time for Anthony Mantha to have a big season in Washington. This could be the season.