The Malik Report

Highly-heralded prospect suffers a broken leg during a prospect tournament, misses training camp, and "loses his game shape" while rehabbing his leg. Player begins season a month-and-a-half behind the games-played curve and far further behind the confidence curve. Struggles snowball, highly-heralded prospect has very mediocre rookie pro season, is OK in playoffs, but just OK.

Player was expected to dominate as goal-scorer but didn't. GM, coach say that player needs to "hit the gym," but aren't writing him off by any means. Team VP seems to ignore injury in saying player's campaign was disappointing, using "very" three times. Internet asplodes.

Pro Hockey Talk notes the issue. The Hockey News points out that it still ranked player as 6th-best NHL prospect. Some blogger goes to Grand Rapids, watches two games focusing on player, realizes that he's out of shape, that stick is probably five inches too long, that team chose to allow player to struggle at AHL level instead of demoting him to ECHL because prospect from shallowest Major Junior league is still benefiting from struggling as a big fish in a Great Lake.

If you weren't aware, Anthony Mantha actually spoke with the media and this random blogger yesterday, addressing his rookie struggles, Babcock and Holland's remarks about him and his goals going forward, and I thought his willingness to admit to and embrace his struggles as a professional were incredibly encouraging:

Riley Sheahan had a so-so-at-best rookie year in Grand Rapids. Brendan Smith was a work in progress. Tomas Jurco had a shitty first half of his rookie year. Jimmy Howard was a project-and-a-half. Petr Mrazek had ups and downs. Gustav Nyquist took a while to "get it." Tomas Tatar took to the AHL like a fish to water.

Teemu Pulkkinen wasn't a dominant scorer off the bat, even after coming over from the Finnish pro league, and Alexey Marchenko had his hiccups after coming over from the KHL. Ryan Sproul, Nick Jensen and even Xavier Ouellet are still learning, as is Pulkkinen.

None of them fell off the map and stayed there like Martin Frk has, and Martin Frk spent last summer in the gym and in Grand Rapids, and scored points at a point-and-a-half-per-game pace in the ECHL this past season.

Players who have immense struggles after abso-*#$%@&-lutely dominating a Major Junior League are of course having disappointing rookie pro campaigns.

But Mantha did get hurt, and he did fall behind the "shape" curve like nobody's business. Mantha ADMITS that he thought it was going to be easier to transition to the AHL, and I can tell you that starting behind the shape curve, losing your confidence due to an injury AND thinking it's not going to be as hard as it is = a deadly recipe for struggling.

But there are still 25-to-30 goal hands there.

The problem is that he toe-drags his way toward a shot the same way that Pulkkinen still winds up before unleashing that glorious slapper, and Mantha needs to eliminate that toe drag.

The problem is that it is incredibly apparent that the 6'4," 210-ish pound Mantha needs to put on another 15 pounds of core and upper-body strength, because he's getting bumped around and bumped off pucks by his opponents.

The problem is that he's still gliding instead of skating too regularly in the defensive and offensive zones, proving that those comparisons to a Johan Franzen-style player who would be a project in terms of engaging his tremendous skill set--which is also apparent--on a regular basis are true.

The problem is that it's the playoffs, and while he's playing on one of the Griffins' top two lines, often skating with Tomas Nosek, who's been frickin' dominant as a 22-year-old coming over from the Czech Republic, Mantha has almost zero confidence in himself, and between the lack of confidence and the lack of pace, there is only so much that one can do in frickin' May to salvage a long season.

The problem is that Jimmy Devellano calling someone, "Very, very, very disappointing" doesn't negate Mantha's immense potential, mostly because the damn kid takes ownership of his struggles like an adult human being and a professional athlete, not sulking or pouting or suggesting that he should have more ice time, but instead admitting that he, too, is disappointed and frustrated, and that he's going to work on it.

The problem is that the coach and GM seem to be on the same page with a player who needs to hit the gym, get in shape both mentally and physically, work on his shot and work on his skating, and then come back and try again, because the path to becoming an NHL player is not a linear path, and those who zig-zag between success and fainlure--and those who make the disappointing zag into a rough rookie campaign--are not suddenly washed up forever and ever and ever (as Gave has suggested), not when they're willing to admit that they could have done better, not when the organization supports the player and not when they're as frickin' talented as Anthony Mantha still is talented.

He's just got to work his ass off this summer, understand that he'll need to show up as a leader at the summer development camp and fall prospect tournament, using those events as ways in which to check in on his progress with strength and conditioning coach Peter Renzetti and check in on the state of his game and the pace thereof with the Griffins and Wings' coaches, if not the state of his self-confidence, and then next year, he's got to prove that very, very, very disappointing rookie seasons are just that--rookie seasons.

I still believe that Anthony Mantha has 20-25 goal and possibly 25-30 goal potential, but now I understand that coming out of the QMJHL, getting hurt, losing his "shape" and believing that things were going to be a lot easier than they were in terms of translating his Major Junior success into Pro League success, Mantha had a lot longer to go and a lot longer to GROW than we knew, and so he's going to have a longer road to the NHL than we'd hoped.

And I still believe in his ability to succeed and to go from very, very, very disappointing to very, very, very good and very, very, very integral to the Wings' success one, two, three or however many years it takes him to develop into a strong NHL player.

There are no "sure things," but if and when he applies himself with the intensity, effort, attention to detail and resolve that the Wings require of all their players and prospects, I believe that Mantha is too good a player and too decent a person to be written off already.

The rest of this is very, very, very unnecessary, and very, very, very overblown.

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