Even though he’s now a Devil, I spent way too much time trying to figure out whether Anthony Mantha’s 25-26 breakout season was for real. TL;DR: yes and no. 

What’s real:

His shot profile changed in a meaningful way. In his Detroit peak years (2018-202) 53% is his shots came from 30+ feet. In Pittsburgh, only 40%. And more importantly, his high danger shot share (<15ft) almost doubled from 20% to 37%. So this means he had way more solid scoring chances. 

You can see this in the post’s image. 

That is a structural change: shot profile results from a player’s role, linemates, and how the coach uses them. Muse deserves a cut of that credit, but that type of change usually sticks. 

What’s luck:

His shooting percentage was 21.7%. That means he is scoring on one out of every five shots. Based on his underlying shot quality alone, his expected shooting percentage was 12.6%. That luck will regress season to season. He’s not gonna shoot like that again. 

But so what if he got lucky? A player with high expectations and a few major injuries had a breakout season. And that breakout helped lead us to the playoffs. 

Full breakdown with all of the charts if you want more:

https://guinoshockey.com/articles/mantha


Was Mantha’s season a lucky outlier or legit?