Anthony Mantha showed up at his introductory Devils availability with the kind of swagger you don’t often hear from a guy on his sixth NHL address. Two days after signing a two-year, $9.5 million contract with New Jersey on July 15, the 6-foot-5 winger told Devils beat reporter Amanda Stein that he spent last season chasing a very specific target.
“I would say the mindset I came in (with) last year, my thinking was to be the most talked-about player last year,” Mantha said. “And if I wasn’t up in the conversations, I was damn close to hitting my objective.”
Stein, posting under the #NJDevils tag on July 17, added that Mantha has been working with a mental coach “the last little while,” which he credited as part of why he produced his best season to date in 2025-26. Stein indicated she would have more from the conversation later.
The career year came in Pittsburgh, where Mantha signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal with up to $2 million in bonuses on July 2, 2025. It was a prove-it contract for a player whose previous season had ended in brutal fashion — Mantha tore his ACL in early November 2024 while with the Calgary Flames, undergoing surgery and missing the remainder of the year. He had opened that Flames season with a Gordie Howe hat trick in Vancouver on October 9, only to have the campaign cut short less than a month later.
So the Pittsburgh bet paid off. Mantha delivered what Stein and the player himself both described as a career year, and it parlayed into multi-year security in New Jersey at nearly $5 million per season. The Devils clearly liked what they saw — they locked him in on the same mid-July day they were finalizing their 2026-27 schedule and announcing additions to their coaching and development staff.
Mantha’s NHL journey reads like a man who’s been around enough locker rooms to know exactly what he needs. Drafted 20th overall by Detroit in 2013, he broke in with the Red Wings, was traded to Washington in 2021 for a package that included Jakub Vrána and two draft picks, bounced to Vegas at the 2024 deadline, signed with Calgary that summer, landed in Pittsburgh a year later, and now arrives in Newark. Six teams in a career that’s still going at 31.
The mental-coach detail is the part that sticks. Here’s a guy who’s been traded four times, watched a season vanish to a knee injury, and could have easily settled into journeyman status on a one-year deal in Pittsburgh. Instead he set out to be the most talked-about player in the league — and by his own assessment, came close enough to earn a two-year commitment from a Devils team that’s been aggressive this offseason, extending Nico Hischier for five years and tendering an offer sheet to Utah’s Barrett Hayton.
Whether the mindset translates to the Prudential Center ice is a question for October. The Devils open their home schedule October 1 against the Flyers. Mantha will be there, mental coach in his corner, with something to prove all over again.
The film doesn’t lie — and neither does a $9.5 million contract.
Sources:
- Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) on X — Mantha quote and mental coach detail, July 17, 2026
- NHL.com — New Jersey Devils news page (Mantha signing, July 15, 2026)
- Wikipedia — Anthony Mantha career history, contract details, ACL injury