Anthony Mantha quickly endeared himself to Calgary Flames fans after just one game with the club.
The big winger scored a goal, grabbed an assist, and got into a fight in his first game of the 2024-25 season, earning the fourth Gordie Howe hat trick of his career. Mantha’s last Gordie before this one came with the Washington Capitals against the Tampa Bay Lightning on November 11, 2022.
The two-point performance helped power the Flames to an eventual, come-from-behind, 6-5 overtime win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Mantha’s goal
Mantha got things started while Calgary was down a man late in the first period. After racing onto the ice after serving his own penalty, Mantha intercepted a pass in his defensive zone and beat Quinn Hughes in a foot race down the ice for a breakaway. He then slipped a nifty backhand finish through the five-hole of goaltender Arturs Silovs.
Mantha’s fight
Mantha earned the fighting portion of the hat trick when he dropped the gloves with JT Miller just 3:04 after scoring Calgary’s first goal of the game. Miller injured Flames forward Kevin Rooney with a big hit earlier in the game, and Mantha called upon Miller to answer for the hit. Miller also ended up with a Gordie Howe hat trick at the end of regulation.
Mantha’s assist
Mantha capped off the hatty by tallying the primary assist on Martin Pospisil’s goal 2:41 into the third period. After defenseman Kevin Bahl made a nice keep-in at the point, Mantha found Pospisil in the high slot, and the Slovakian forward sniped past Silovs’ blocker.
Gordie Howe Hat-Trick ✅ pic.twitter.com/YMyVYVc8Km
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) October 10, 2024
Per Sportsnet’s Eric Francis, Mantha, whose grandfather Andre Pronovost played with Howe on the Detroit Red Wings in the early 1960s, is one of just six players in NHL history to pick up a Gordie Howe hat trick in his debut with a new team, and the first in 24 years. The last was Brad May with the Phoenix Coyotes on October 5, 2000.
Mantha is also the first Flames player to record a Gordie since Alex Chiasson, another former Capitals winger, did so for Calgary on December 4, 2016.
“We have a great group of guys in here,” Mantha said postgame. “Everyone has everyone’s back. That’s the message we need to have inside the locker room. I think we showed everyone tonight – don’t take us lightly. We’re a good team, we’re going to play fast, and we’re going to score goals.”
Mantha and Miller fighting one another to earn that portion of their dueling Gordies makes them just the fifth pair in NHL history to do so. The fact that it occurred in a season-opening game is even more rare, as that has only happened one other time. The Flames were also involved in that occasion, as both Dana Murzyn and Gary Roberts achieved the feat by fighting Detroit’s Gerard Gallant in 1989.
Mantha, 30, signed a one-year, $3.5 million contract with the Flames on the first day of free agency in July after he spent the 2023-24 campaign with the Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights. The 29-year-old winger bounced back last year to score 20 goals in a season for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign when he was a member of the Detroit Red Wings.
