Mangiapane keeps silencing critics with NHL debut
Undersized winger drafted in 6th round after fighting for a spot in major junior
Andrew Mangiapane stood at the Calgary Flames blue-line on Sunday as a member of the starting lineup of the team’s New Year Eve classic against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The 21-year-old’s National Hockey League debut was the culmination of a lifelong dream — one that at times seemed far-fetched and impossible to achieve.
An undersized winger full of speed and skill, there was a time Mangiapane did not believe the Ontario Hockey League was possible, let alone the National Hockey League.
“I didn’t know, right?” the native of Bolton, Ont., said in the Flames’ dressing room Sunday. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I was going to go to school … I went to (the OHL’s) Barrie (Colts) camp and they liked me. My mom was still saying, ‘I don’t know if you should go.’ Everyone was telling us, ‘School, school, school.’
“Dale had to do convincing over my family.”
Dale, of course, is Dale Hawerchuk, the head coach of the Colts who had caught wind of Mangiapane through his assistant, Todd Miller.
Miller had been running a small Colts camp at Wasaga Beach, Ont. By chance, Mangiapane, who had just wrapped up a season with the Toronto Jr. Canadians midget triple-A team, snagged an invite.
“That’s where they recognized me,” Mangiapane said. “A guy from my high school hockey team knew (Miller). He got me into a camp with the Barrie Colts draftees. It wasn’t even their main camp or rookie camp. It was just a little camp.”
But doing what he does, Mangiapane impressed and found himself playing in 68 games for the Colts, putting up 24 goals and 27 assists during the 2013-14 OHL season.
The following two years were the real game-changers. In 201415, he scored 43 goals and 61 assists in 68 games and was drafted by the Flames in the sixth round (166th overall) of the 2015 draft. In 201516, he put up 51 goals and 55 assists in 59 games.
“I can’t say thanks enough to Dale or Todd Miller for finding me,” Mangiapane said. “He gave me my career, right? No one else was giving me an opportunity, except for him and the Barrie Colts. They were the only team that believed in me.”
What he’s done since is impressive.
Last year, in his first season as a professional with the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat, the Flames affiliate, he put up 20 goals and 21 assists in 66 games. He started this year on a line with Mark Jankowski and Garnet Hathaway but continued to produce when Jankowski was recalled on Oct. 23 and Brett Findlay was replaced as their centre.
Mangiapane continue to produce when Hathaway was recalled on Nov. 29 and Ryan Lomberg was replaced as his right-winger.
Having scored 14 goals and 19 assists in 29 games for the Heat — including a pair of goals while the Calgary Flames brass and coaching staff were in attendance during an AHL-NHL doubleheader in San Jose last week — recalling Mangiapane was a no-brainer when Michael Frolik was placed on the injured reserve with a fractured jaw.
“He’s a dog on a bone,” Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan said. “A low centre of gravity guy that’s all around the puck and in the hard areas — he scored two really nice goals, too (in the AHL game of the doubleheader). He finished when he got his chances. Obviously, it’s a different level and it’s going to take some time, but he’s earned a chance.”
Wearing the Calgary Police Service cowboy hat of the game, Mangiapane was grinning from ear to ear after Sunday’s 4-3 overtime win over the visiting Blackhawks.
His stat line was fairly quiet — zero goals, zero assists, two shots on net and 7:26 of ice time on the team’s fourth line with Troy Brouwer and Matt Stajan.
But it’ll be a New Year’s Eve celebration he’ll never forget.
“You have to keep proving people wrong,” Mangiapane said. “They’d say, ‘You’re too small. You’re too light.’ Growing up, that was all I heard — get your education. That was really the only thing that was on my mind.” But plans change quickly. “The whole game (against the Blackhawks) was unbelievable,” Mangiapane said with a grin. “(Sunday) was an unreal experience.”