Devils' depth proving valuable with long-term Mantha injury

The New Jersey Devils got a bit of unfortunate news Wednesday evening when it was revealed that, after further imaging was done on his injury, new-to-the-team forward Anthony Mantha would be placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) with a throat injury. His injury was sustained in the Devils' 5-4 overtime thriller against the New York Islanders, where Mantha was high-sticked directly in the throat on the penalty that ultimately gave the Devils the game-tying power-play goal.

Mantha, who had career highs across the board in goals (33), assists (31), and, of course, points (64), had accumulated 10 points in his last 11 games. All ten points were accumulated once he was dropped to the third line instead of playing next to Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt.

For the Devils, this is undeniably a pretty big hit to their forward group -- Mantha had been playing some excellent hockey of late and was really starting to gel with his new organization. However, it's not wholly detrimental to New Jersey, simply by virtue of the depth they have. Because of the foundation that Sunny Mehta and company created down with the Utica Comets, they have NHL options in the pipeline.

The injuries are starting to pile up for the New Jersey Devils

The Devils called up both Lenni Hameenaho, Utica's top point-getter, who has nine points in 11 AHL games, and Stefan Noesen, a long-time NHLer who has been forced to the minor leagues by virtue of how full their main roster was. They made the call-ups and allocations in a specific order with the Mantha placement to LTIR, so as to optimize their cap situation. With those three moves and Riley Tufte's relegation back to Utica, the Devils have just shy of $2.75 million of cap space to play with at this point in time.

Still, the point stands that they should be just fine as far as their roster goes up front, given that they supplanted Mantha's impact with another NHL-caliber forward (Noesen, who has three points in five NHL games this year) and Hameenaho, who has NHL games under his belt and is one of the organization's top prospects.

It's undoubtedly a bummer that Mantha will be out for at least 10 games and 24 days, but Mehta's organization framework is built to sustain injuries well both at forward and on defense. The latter of the two might be prevalent on short notice -- remember that Johnathan Kovacevic exited the last affair early with what looked to be a frustrating injury for the defenseman. Perhaps there is another call-up to make at some point in the near future.