One of the main complaints at the end of the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins season was Anthony Mantha's disappearance. Mantha, who set a career high in goals with 33 in the regular season, recorded a single assist in a six-game series against the Philadelphia Flyers. Penguins fans and the Penguins themselves decided to move on from Mantha, as they didn't think they could afford him after a career year, and his playoff disappearance didn't sit well.
Mantha signed a two year contract with an average annual value of $4.75 million and no trade protection. While New Jersey Devils fans may not be in tune with how the Penguins played last season, many saw 33 goals as a good sign. Truly, it is. Mantha, on paper, should provide a top-six scoring threat that can ride alongside Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt.
Four games into the Devils' season, Mantha may be on the outside looking in already. Mantha does not have a point yet with his new team. This is not the Anthony Mantha who set career highs in every offensive category last season and more like the player the Washington Capitals gave up on.
Still, it is only four games into the season. Why would Mantha be on the outside looking in after signing a lucrative contract and skating with Hughes and Bratt for most of the preseason and most of the games so far?
Anthony Mantha has not been a positive contributor early in his New Jersey Devils career
Mantha has not been good. Besides setting a solid screen in the home opener against the Philadelphia Flyers that led to a goal, Mantha has not been worth mentioning. He has missed nets on open opportunities, he hasn't been noticeable at all, and he has yet to score a goal. After the Devils started their game against the Utah Mammoth by taking a penalty in the first ten seconds, the team and head coach Sheldon Keefe said the team needed to start games better and not take early penalties.
Mantha took a hooking penalty less than five minutes into the game against the Vancouver Canucks, a power play in which the Canucks would cash in.
When a team opens up the first four games of the season by starting down 1-0 in all four, fans are going to get restless, as this has been a problem for the last few seasons now. Mantha, who should be scoring, put his team at a massive disadvantage when it was time for the team to rebound.
With all of this pointed out, it seems like Keefe is also on the same line of thinking. In the season opener, Mantha had 17 minutes and 24 seconds of ice time. In each of the three games after that, Mantha's ice time has gone down. Most notably, he was the only New Jersey Devil to not have at least 10 minutes of ice time against the Canucks.
With Mantha seemingly in the doghouse not even double-digit games into the season, where does this put him? Connor Brown, who thrived with Hughes and Bratt at the tail end of last season, should be back soon with the team. The emergence of the Amadeus Lombardi-Cody Glass-Jesper Boqvist line sets the fourth line in stone until something drastic happens there.
Where does Anthony Mantha fit?
This leaves the middle six, where Mantha will most likely play. Would Keefe place him on the right side of Nico Hischier and Timo Meier? What about with Arseni Gritsyuk and Evan Rodrigues? Luke Evangelista has had a solid start to the year with Hischier and Meier. The likely spot for Mantha is on the third line with Gritsyuk and Rodrigues.
After scoring 33 goals last season, a demotion to the third line wasn't what Devils fans, or probably Mantha himself, had in the cards. If Mantha doesn't prove he is worthy of the top-six role the Devils thought they were getting, players like Lenni Hameenaho, Shane LaChance, and even the emerging Matyas Melovsky could pass him in the AHL.
If Mantha does find himself on the outside looking in this quickly, it may be a good thing he does not have trade protection for the Devils, as they can easily move on from the contract.
Once again, this is all being put together from four games into the season and a small sample size. Something the Devils and their fans cannot wait for, however, is Mantha to start playing like a 33-goal scorer.
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