Mantha had NHL career highs of 33 goals, 31 assists and 64 points in 81 regular-season games with the Penguins last season and one assist in six Stanley Cup Playoff games.<\/p>\n
He entered free agency hoping for term after coming off his best statistical season and looking for something longer than a one-year contract. At first, the market didn’t unfold the way he and his camp expected.<\/p>\n
The Devils initially discussed a one-year deal. Mantha’s side circled back to see if New Jersey would consider lowering the average annual value in exchange for a second year. For Mantha, that added year mattered.<\/p>\n
“With three young kids, I kind of wanted to stay somewhere for more than one year,” he said. “Getting that two-year deal was a big relief and I’m just excited to be here now that it’s all done and set.”<\/p>\n
The relief was about more than contract security; it also represented another step in a career Mantha has had to rebuild physically and mentally.<\/p>\n
He grinded through rehabilitation after tearing his right ACL on Nov. 5, 2024, an injury that limited him to 13 games in what became a lost season. At 30, he wondered what came next. It was not the first time injuries had worn on him.<\/p>\n
Mantha has worked for years with Toronto-based mental coach Matt Caldaroni, a relationship that began after shoulder surgery during the 2021-22 season with the Washington Capitals. The procedure came in November, and Mantha returned in March. Around that time, he said he had lost his passion for hockey.<\/p>\n
“After my shoulder injury that kept me out for like 4-5 months, (Caldaroni) had me fill this whole paper and he’s like, ‘Are you sure you still like to play hockey?’ I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t know.’ I’ve been injured a lot. I don’t know if the passion is there as much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“(Caldaroni) said, ‘All right, we’re going to get that back,’ and that’s how we started working together.”<\/p>\n
That work became central again after the knee injury. Mantha stayed in constant communication with Caldaroni throughout the rehab process.<\/p>\n
“If you ask me if I love hockey today, my answer is easy … it’s yes,” Mantha said. “So it worked the right way.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mantha had NHL career highs of 33 goals, 31 assists and 64 points in 81 regular-season games with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-809978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}