There’s some discrepancy on the exact target, but the objective is clear.
Flames head coach Ryan Huska says the request is actually an average of three per game, which would add up to closer to 250.
Either way, it’s a lot of rubber, a big and maybe-bordering-on-unattainable ask, but it tells you a lot about the always-ready-to-rifle mentality that the Flames are looking to instil in this 30-year-old power forward.
Keep in mind that Mantha opened training camp on a line with Jonathan Huberdeau, who still has a reputation as one of the NHL’s premier passers, even if his point totals from the past two seasons don’t necessarily show it. The speedy Martin Pospisil has been skating as their centre.
“The coach and I talked a lot over the summer and he wants me to shoot almost 300 pucks, he told me. That’s the message he’s sending me,” said Mantha, who scored 23 goals last season and signed a one-year, US$3.5-million contract with the Flames on the first day of free agency. “To shoot 300 pucks in this league, you need to have icetime, you need to have some power-play time, you need to play those extra big minutes, four-on-four, three-on-three …
“Hopefully, I jump in that role and I embrace it and I take it and I make it happen.”
When the left-handed Mantha does let ’er rip, good things tend to happen.
While he registered only 113 shots in 74 games last winter, which he started with the Washington Capitals and wrapped with the Vegas Golden Knights, he scored on 20.4% of those. That is a sizzling success rate.
There were 340 other dudes across the NHL to hit triple digits in on-target attempts in 2023-24, but only one of ’em — Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers — boasted a better shooting percentage than Mantha. (Reinhart, who finished second in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, capitalized on 24.5% of his blasts.)
When you consider that stat, it’s no wonder the Flames want Mantha to fire more frequently. As Huska summed up: “He has a rocket of a shot.”
Whether it’s a rocket or a rebound, could be possibly press ‘Launch’ on 300 occasions in his first campaign in Calgary?
Mantha’s previous high is 198 shots, his count on behalf of the Detroit Red Wings in 2018-19. He buried 25 of those, also a career-best.
There were only nine NHLers to put 300-plus pucks on net last season, and it’s a star-studded list — Nathan MacKinnon (405), David Pastrnak (382), Auston Matthews (369), Brady Tkachuk (357), Filip Forsberg (347), William Nylander (316), Cole Caufield (314), Nikita Kucherov (306) and Artemi Panarin (303).
Jarome Iginla was the last Flames’ triggerman to blow past 300, achieving that feat for the third time in his career in 2007-08. Nazem Kadri led the team last season with 277.
So yeah … 300 would be a huge haul.
“Coaching against him over the last number of years, there were nights where you watch him play and you’re like, ‘My gosh, this guy is the best player on the ice,’ ” Huska said of Mantha, who is an imposing presence at 6-foot-5 and 234 lb. and is on track to reach the 500-game plateau before the end of October.
“He’s going to be in a position that we’re going to need him to be a threat when he’s on the ice,” the coach continued. “And if he’s going to play with Huby, Huby is a pass-first guy, as we know, so I want him to be ready to shoot. We feel like if he has the mindset where, ‘I’ve gotta get up to 300 shots,’ which is a lot of shots, then he’s going to score some goals because he is naturally talented that way.
“So I’m hopeful that he kind of grabs hold of that and he is selfish when it comes to shooting the puck.”
There are multiple reasons for the C of Red — and the staff at the Saddledome — to hope that Mantha embraces this challenge.
With Huberdeau signed for seven more seasons at a franchise-record cap-hit of US$10.5 million, the Flames continue to brainstorm ways to bolster his confidence and maximize his production. With all the grumbling about his underwhelming point totals, you may be surprised to read that the 31-year-old left-winger still leads the team in assists since his arrival in Calgary, and that’s despite the fact he hasn’t developed an undeniable chemistry with any of his linemates so far.
And because Mantha is on an expiring contract, he’s already being talked about as a candidate to be flipped at the trade deadline for future assets. Last season, he’d scored 20 by early March and the Golden Knights gave up a pair of draft picks — a second- and fourth-rounder — to bring him to Sin City. If there isn’t a long-term fit with the Flames, this could still prove to be a worthwhile investment.
“If Huby gives it right on the tape, why are you not going to shoot it?” said Mantha, who has so far notched 142 goals in the NHL and owns a career shooting percentage of 12.6%. “If you don’t shoot, you don’t score, so … ”
ICE CHIPS: The Flames will open their exhibition slate Sunday against the Kraken in Seattle (8 p.m. MT).