Why you insist on labeling legit criticisms as hangups?
Mantha still hasn't proven many of the things that people seem to think he's proved.
You want to pay him for what he hasn't done? If so - that seems like a "hangup" to me.
Because everything about what Mantha has done shows a player getting better. He is getting more consistent as he develops. He got injured this year on a complete fluky cheapshot by a bender and it isn't a legitimate worry that he's got a weaker ribcage or something now. All of his injuries that he's built up are all acute injuries. They're not chronic. They're not weak knees or a bad back. Injury history is a worry with a guy like Gabe Vilardi now. It was a worry about Zetterberg and Datsyuk near the ends of their careers. Mantha literally just needs a coach in his ear saying "stand up for your teammates by scoring on the ensuing PP instead of throwing hands" and all of a sudden his injury worries are gone. Mantha who doesn't jump into fights he shouldn't be in doesn't miss 20 games and all of a sudden he's a 60 point winger. He has two consecutive years of 48 points in 67 and 48 in 80 and a third in which he had 38 points in 43 games. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that he's not capping out as a 50 point winger if you give him more opportunity.
No, he hasn't proven that he's a top 10 right wing. No, he hasn't proven he is a star. He's also not in line to get a 9M contract. He IS in line to get a long term contract that has a greater chance of being a Roman Josi-like bargain over what his talent level is than an albatross.
I insist on calling them hangups, because they're not legitimate criticisms or if they are, they're the good type where you get a good player cheaper than he should be and not the other way around. Mantha has scored at a 0.67 PPG pace for most of the last four years and was at 0.88 this year before Muzzin went Captain Insano on him. He's been improving his consistency and is a responsible two way forward. His game isn't predicated on him bullrushing everything or blitzing past everything.
A legitimate criticism of Mantha would involve say he gets a ton of points from the PP or he gets a lot of points because he's on a line with the only two other roster forwards on the Wings who are any good. Another would be if he had long parts of games that he took off (like a certain other former Wing would tend to do). When Jimmy D back in 2014 was saying how disappointed he was in Mantha, that was legitimate. He wasn't doing what he was capable of doing.
Anthony Mantha has warts on his game that are the type that don't matter. He's going to get a cheaper contract because he's been injured in fights and his counting stats are lower because the defenders that play with him are Cletus the slack jawed yokel. So no, he hasn't hit 50 points... but he's also not had a competent puck moving defenseman who wasn't also skating like he had a walker on the ice at any point in his career. Mantha is a player you bank on breaking out and try to pay him before he does. You even say it yourself "I think he'll be a 30g, 70p winger" at some point. So why wouldn't you try signing him as the "guy who can't hit 50 points" instead of complaining that he doesn't have the counting stats yet. That's why I think the "legit criticisms" are complete bullshit.
