Anthony Mantha (looking good so far in AHL)

[Dotter]

You're seeing things. Neither goal was on Mantha.

Clearly Jensen's man getting inside position on him is Mantha's fault.

Lol, Mantha was picking his nose at the blueline while everyone collapsed along the board trying to win puck battles. The opposition team came out with it and scored an easy goal. Mantha just stood there and watched. Only thing he was missing was his popcorn bucket and lazyboy.

 

[MBauer]

Lol, Mantha was picking his nose at the blueline while everyone collapsed along the board trying to win puck battles. The opposition team came out with it and scored an easy goal. Mantha just stood there and watched. Only thing he was missing was his popcorn bucket and lazyboy.

There was absolutely no board/puck battle, the monster forward carried it into the zone and had possesion the entire time, the only players who messed up were Callahan who was no where near his point man when the play was made to him and Jensen who got beat by Bjork for inside position.

 

[Dotter]

There was absolutely no board/puck battle, the monster forward carried it into the zone and had possesion the entire time, the only players who messed up were Callahan who was no where near his point man when the play was made to him and Jensen who got beat by Bjork for inside position.

puck along the boards, Mantha casually skating near the boards by the blue line chewing bubble gum and enjoying the view... waiting for his easy breakaway chance for glory. He could have easily skated in and took the pass away. But that would require 1.5 feet of a stride in the forward direction. Instead he chose to just watch the play develop.

It was a lazy play by Mantha floating behind the CBJ dmen who are engaging in the play.

 

[SirloinUB]

puck along the boards, Mantha casually skating near the boards by the blue line chewing bubble gum and enjoying the view... waiting for his easy breakaway chance for glory. He could have easily skated in and took the pass away. But that would require 1.5 feet of a stride in the forward direction. Instead he chose to just watch the play develop.

It was a lazy play by Mantha floating behind the CBJ dmen who are engaging in the play.

I didn't see the play so let me preface my post with the fact that I am simply addressing the words you typed and the picture you posted.


You do realize it is the responsibility of the winger to cover the point man, right ?

Based on that picture and your comments it sounds like you want him to blow his own coverage and start puck chasing in th Dzone.

Even if I assume that the opposition takes the puck up along the wall towards Mantha, the centre man should have taken the puck carrier.


I'll wait until I see the highlights before I truly comment on what Mantha should or should not have done. However, what you are saying, doesn't exactly add up.

 

[HisNoodliness]

I hate how our fan base makes its mind up on players and will near delusion to maintain their ideas. I do it too but it is something I actively try to avoid. With Larkin I fully expected him to lack the skill for top 6 NHL duties, now that he's up I can see that while he's not Datsyuk the skill is there and what he lacks he makes up for easily with speed and work ethic. But when he was dominating college I maintained skepticism until the world juniors and then his play in Grand Rapids...after that I was all aboard the hype train and I'm glad he turned out.

Mantha is the opposite, he was my guy in that draft and I've been excited about him for years. I was very disappointed by his slump last year but encouraged by his progress in other facets of his game. Still anyone can recognize that he can float sometimes...and maybe I'm the delusional one and won't admit a prospect I like is too lazy but IMO he's been incredible lately. Engaged in the play, carrying the puck well rarely out of position and finally the scoring and confidence are back. He doesn't look like a selke candidate....but wingers never do. That's not his role and I think he's filling his perfectly.

 

[Dotter]

I didn't see the play so let me preface my post with the fact that I am simply addressing the words you typed and the picture you posted.


You do realize it is the responsibility of the winger to cover the point man, right ?

Based on that picture and your comments it sounds like you want him to blow his own coverage and start puck chasing in th Dzone.

Even if I assume that the opposition takes the puck up along the wall towards Mantha, the centre man should have taken the puck carrier.


I'll wait until I see the highlights before I truly comment on what Mantha should or should not have done. However, what you are saying, doesn't exactly add up.

Exactly. So why is Mantha drifting off in neverland while his point man is jumping up in play? His coverage is already blown. He just stood there hoping the puck bounces out to him. It doesn't. The other team wins the puck battle and scores.

Mantha floated around there the whole team while 5 Monsters players collapsed on the play to score a goal.

My point remains the same, Mantha should not be rewarded for his lazy play. I'd rather Ken Holland call up Aubry at this point since AA is injured.

 

[SoupNazi]

Exactly. So why is Mantha drifting off in neverland while his point man is jumping up in play? His coverage is already blown. He just stood there hoping the puck bounces out to him. It doesn't. The other team wins the puck battle and scores.

Mantha floated around there the whole team while 5 Monsters players collapsed on the play to score a goal.

My point remains the same, Mantha should not be rewarded for his lazy play. I'd rather Ken Holland call up Aubry at this point since AA is injured.

Aubry is the future after all and Mantha will never amount to anything more than an AHL-NHL tweener. We should dump Mantha for a bag of pucks.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Exactly. So why is Mantha drifting off in neverland while his point man is jumping up in play? His coverage is already blown. He just stood there hoping the puck bounces out to him. It doesn't. The other team wins the puck battle and scores.

Mantha floated around there the whole team while 5 Monsters players collapsed on the play to score a goal.

My point remains the same, Mantha should not be rewarded for his lazy play. I'd rather Ken Holland call up Aubry at this point since AA is injured.

You seem to be really reaching on this one Dotter. My guess is if Larkin did the exact same thing (guess what, he's made many bad reads in the defensive zone) you wouldn't call it out.

Nevertheless, defense isn't what we're going to be calling up Mantha for. Just like Pulkkinen, you can let some mediocre defensive play slide if they put up offense.

 

[MBauer]

Exactly. So why is Mantha drifting off in neverland while his point man is jumping up in play? His coverage is already blown. He just stood there hoping the puck bounces out to him. It doesn't. The other team wins the puck battle and scores.

Mantha floated around there the whole team while 5 Monsters players collapsed on the play to score a goal.

My point remains the same, Mantha should not be rewarded for his lazy play. I'd rather Ken Holland call up Aubry at this point since AA is injured.

Dude you're delusional, there was two monsters forwards down low who had guys covering them, not even close to all 5 players, Mantha was most definitely covering his man who was at the point, not jumping up in the play like you imagined. I'm not exactly sure how you think that picture supports your argument, it does the exact opposite, It's clear as day from the picture that Callahan is one caught in no man's land absolutely nowhere near his pointman who made a nice play to start the goal.

You're literally just making stuff up at this point or clearly have no idea whatsoever about defensive positioning, like 3 other people have told you you're blatantly wrong, just stop.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Exactly. So why is Mantha drifting off in neverland while his point man is jumping up in play? His coverage is already blown. He just stood there hoping the puck bounces out to him. It doesn't. The other team wins the puck battle and scores.

Mantha floated around there the whole team while 5 Monsters players collapsed on the play to score a goal.

My point remains the same, Mantha should not be rewarded for his lazy play. I'd rather Ken Holland call up Aubry at this point since AA is injured.

I've never played at a high level, so maybe I'm out to lunch on this. But isn't the idea that if you're a winger and your man pinches in, an opposing forward is supposed to come back to cover for him? And when that happens, the forward isn't supposed to come in to cover the D, nor is the defenseman or center supposed to come out to cover the forward who's now at the point. Instead, they're supposed to switch, right?

But in this case, the forward never comes back to cover. So the question is: what is a winger supposed to do in that case? It seems to me that it would be very easy to be completely wide open, and you'd potentially have a breakaway. Or you could come back and help pick up the extra man.

My observation is that whenever the Wings try to do that second thing, they get scored on. Too many men down low makes it really hard to sort out coverage, and often creates the kind of traffic that helps with garbage goals and deflected point shots. Plus there's nobody to make a breakout pass to. Everybody is down low, and it's harder to get it out without just airmailing it out. On the other hand, it seems like whenever the Wings have a wide open guy like that, they usually make good on it. True, there is one guy doing nothing for a minute, but he's also wide open to make a potentially huge play.

I guess it ultimately comes down to what you want from Mantha. My suspicion is that if you've got a very offensively skilled guy who's already just okay defensively, you don't really want him coming down low and complicating things for your defensemen. You want him wide open for that chance. Instead of doing something he's bad at, you get him doing something he's very good at.

 

[MBauer]

I didn't see the play so let me preface my post with the fact that I am simply addressing the words you typed and the picture you posted.


You do realize it is the responsibility of the winger to cover the point man, right ?

Based on that picture and your comments it sounds like you want him to blow his own coverage and start puck chasing in th Dzone.

Even if I assume that the opposition takes the puck up along the wall towards Mantha, the centre man should have taken the puck carrier.


I'll wait until I see the highlights before I truly comment on what Mantha should or should not have done. However, what you are saying, doesn't exactly add up.

He actually doesn't carry it up the wall, Bjorkstrand who has the puck in the pic throws it the pointman who Cally was supposed to be covering, that throws the other players off leading to the goal, it was a pretty bad read by Cally and had nothing to do with Mantha.

 

[Pavels Dog]

aaaand Mantha scores again.

 

[TheMule93]

aaaand Mantha scores again.

Got an assist shortly after too

 

[RayMoonDoh]

7-11-18 in 20

 

[SpookyTsuki]

aaaand Mantha scores again.

was it a 4 on 3 empty netter? if so doesnt count

 

[WingedWheel1987]

Call him up. I'll pick him up from GR and take him to the Joe.

 

[crashnburnluder]

Call him up. I'll pick him up from GR and take him to the Joe.

This is one of the few times I don't want a prospect like him called up. He had enough confidence problems last year and beginning of this year. I wouldn't want to do a thing to risk that. Let him ride this confidence and take a big step in his game.

 

[Gyldenlove]

Does anyone else feel like GR is just running up the score at this point? 14 game win streak so far.

 

[WesNichols14]

Does anyone else feel like GR is just running up the score at this point? 14 game win streak so far.

No, considering a few of the recent games have been come back from behind wins.the streak doesn't matter. As far as the latest game, I'm of the opinion that if you can score, you go ahead and score. This isn't peewee. It's professional hockey. For some of these guys that goal could have an effect on his family. If you don't want to lose 6-1 work harder on defense, or get a better goalie.

 

[TheRatPoisoner]

Does anyone else feel like GR is just running up the score at this point? 14 game win streak so far.

Forget the ?

 

[DanZ]

I'm ok with Mantha not getting called up just yet. He's had some confidence issues so I'd like to see him dominate the AHL for a bit more than risk hurting his confidence in the NHL.

 

[SpookyTsuki]

I didnt even see what Dotter said calling up Aubry over Mantha

Really? why would you do that?

 

[Henkka]

I didnt even see what Dotter said calling up Aubry over Mantha

Really? why would you do that?

If you need a 4th liner to play at 9min role?

 

[SpookyTsuki]

If you need a 4th liner to play at 9min role?

Mantha is better then Aubry at that lol

I don't see how 9 minutes would be that bad either especially now that GR is on break. Nyquist and Tatar sometimes get less then that on some games.

 

[Winger98]

Mantha is better then Aubry at that lol

I don't see how 9 minutes would be that bad either especially now that GR is on break. Nyquist and Tatar sometimes get less then that on some games.

Would he be? I mean, throwing Mantha out there for 9 minutes with Glendening and Andersson or whoever isn't exactly a scoring line. Meanwhile, Aubry's been here for awhile, he's been a good organizational guy, and he probably wouldn't hurt us in those minutes. It'd be a nice reward, and maybe a look at a possible depth guy for next year if we're looking at letting Helm and/or Miller and/or Andersson walk. Or at least give Aubry a look for other teams so maybe he could catch on elsewhere. It wouldn't be the worst thing to do (hey, it's Action Dan's birthday...time for a call up!).