Andrew Mangiapane has been fantastic at the World Championships for Team Canada

It wasn’t the best season of all time for Andrew Mangiapane, but it was not on the poor end for him, either. He finished the year with 40 points in 75 games, three fewer than his total in the previous season when he played five more games. Unfortunately, Mangiapane’s efforts on a line with Blake Coleman and the captain Mikael Backlund weren’t able to help the Calgary Flames reach the NHL post-season, but that gave him a chance to represent Team Canada at the World Championships, and he has been very strong in his showings thus far, especially alongside some talented players.

Mangiapane is the only Flames player on the Team Canada roster and one of two current Flames in the entire tournament, with Martin Pospisil playing for Team Slovakia.

The World Championships don’t receive as much coverage as they probably should, more than likely because it’s smack dab in the middle of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which have been excellent up to this point. Plenty of great NHL players are playing for their respective countries, and Team Canada is no exception. There are a number of high-calibre names on the roster, but despite that, Mangiapane has found his way up on the scoring leaderboard for the tournament.

In seven games this tournament, Mangiapane has scored six points, which is tied with Connor Bedard (whom you might have heard of) and the current man trying to revive his name and value in Los Angeles, Pierre Luc-Dubois. One of the many up-and-coming stars for the Buffalo Sabres, Dylan Cozens, is first on the team in scoring with 10 points, and team captain John Tavares is second with eight points in six games.

It’s also worth mentioning that Mangiapane is an alternate captain for this iteration of Team Canada, along with Colton Parayko and Damon Severson.

Mangiapane found lots of success the last and only other time he was invited to the Team Canada roster. The last time he played in the tournament was the 2020-21 season before his career-high 35-goal season with the Flames in 2021-22. He scored seven goals and tallied four assists for 11 points in seven games. Connor Brown of the Edmonton Oilers finished first on the team scoreboard, registering 16 points in 10 games, and Mangiapane was tied with current Oiler Adam Henrique, who had 11 points in 10 games.

Doing well in international tournaments playing with star NHLers and against star NHLers can do wonders for a player’s confidence, and having Mangiapane improve on his already decent scoring totals would be an excellent result for a Flames squad looking to continue adding high-scoring players to their roster in the near future. Mangiapane’s effort and hustle being rewarded on a big stage like the World Championships is well-deserved, and it’s worth keeping an eye on his performance as the elimination games approach.

Team Canada is set to play Team Slovakia in the quarterfinals on Thursday after winning the game against Team Czechia in overtime thanks to a Cozens game-winning goal to determine who would receive the first-place seed.