In terms of the standings and the shift in their odds of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Pittsburgh Penguins 8-3 win over the New York Islanders on Monday night is one of their biggest wins of the 2025-26 season. It might be the biggest win. It was also one of the most impressive as they went on the road, against a team they are fighting with for a playoff spot and playoff positioning, in a place they have historically struggled, and completely dominated the game. They chased the Vezina Trophy front-runner, they had a 23-6 edge in high-danger scoring chances during 5-on-5 play, and they overcame multiple two-goal deficits (2-0, 3-1) to win in a laugher.
There were a lot of important contributors in that game.
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Rickard Rakell continued his recent surge with a two-goal game.
Ryan Shea, Elmer Soderblom and Avery Hayes provided some unexpected scoring depth.
Sidney Crosby returned with two points while Bryan Rust scored another goal.
Then there was Anthony Mantha. On a night where a lot of Penguins players shined, Mantha seemed to stand out more than anybody and played what might have been not only his best game of the season, but one of the most dominant individual games any Penguins forward has had this season.
The numbers on the night are incredible.
He scored two huge goals in the second period to not only give the Penguins their first lead of the game, but also extended it before the end of the period. Prior to that he set up Ryan Shea’s game-tying goal. All of that happened in a span of less than four minutes of game-time, a stretch that not only completely changed the game but also perhaps the Penguins entire playoff push.
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Along with the production and big goals, the Penguins outscored the Islanders 4-0 with Mantha on the ice, while they also had an 88 percent expected goals share.
He dominated.
He also completely redeemed himself from a tough start to the game that included a couple of defensive zone turnovers, including one on a power play that led to a Penguins penalty, resulting in Anders Lee’s goal to open the scoring. From that point on he played like a man possessed and was a central part of their comeback win.
If Kyle Dubas ends up winning the NHL’s general manager of the year award the Mantha signing is going to be at the top of the list for the reasons why. In terms of production and value, it is one of the best free agent signings any team made this past offseason. The only free agents that have come close to producing on Mantha’s level are Mitch Marner (Vegas Golden Knights) and Nikolaj Ehlers (Carolina Hurricanes), but Mantha has more goals than both of them and has a significantly cheaper and smaller contract.
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Getting this production for $2.5 million on a one-year deal is the type of thing that just does not typically happen in free agency.
This is also not a case of him simply being a passenger for Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.
The majority of his 5-on-5 ice-time has come away from both players, while the Penguins are outscoring teams 31-25 with a 53.2 expected goals share when Mantha is on the ice without Crosby and Malkin. Only seven of his 29 goals have been set up by one of those two players. He has just independently, on his own merit, been a wildly productive (and good) player.
There are moments where he makes some, let’s call them, curious decisions with the puck, but the positives have far outweighed the negatives and the production is impossible to ignore.
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The expectation for Mantha at the start of the season, at least for me, was that he would be the new version of Anthony Beauvillier. Veteran player signed to a cheap, one-year contract as a reclamation project so the Penguins could juice his value back up and flip him at the trade deadline for a second-round pick. Instead he has become one of their best and most important players on a team that has far exceeded every preseason expectation.
He has also potentially played his way into an even bigger contract this summer, whether it comes from the Penguins or somebody else. Given how well he has fit here, how much salary cap space the Penguins have to work with, and how thin the free agent class is this summer (Mantha’s 29 goals are tied with Alex Ovechkin for the most goals among pending unrestricted free agents; and Ovechkin is not realistically available to any other team) it is starting to look more and more like the Penguins should just make him an offer and see what it would take to stay.
