Oilers prospect not giving up on NHL dream
Four months ago, one of Edmonton Oilers’ top prospects, Ryan Mantha, was trying to make a play during a Bakersfield Condors game and suddenly lost the sight in his left eye.
It wasn’t an errant stick, or a bouncing puck. It was a blood clot, out of nowhere.
The 21-year-old, booming rightshot defenceman suffered damage to the central retinal artery, which is pretty rare. According to the Harvard Medical School, the retinal artery carries oxygen-rich blood to the retina. When the blockage happens in the retina’s main area, the retina’s light-sensitive cells get choked off of oxygen. The cells can die within minutes or hours if the blood flow is obstructed.
There can be permanent or a significant vision loss.
In the six-foot-five, 225-pound Mantha’s case, he can see out of the eye today after the scary incident Feb. 2, but only peripherally. His straight ahead vision is compromised. Obviously, his career is in jeopardy, although he knows Colorado Avalanche centre Carl Soderberg has been legally blind in his left eye since a stick got under his visor and he was left with a detached retina and 20/80 vision at 21. He also knows the story of Bryan Berard, who continued to play in the NHL after taking a stick in the eye from Marian Hossa, which ruptured his right eyeball.
There’s no woe is me from Mantha, who was drafted in the fourth round by New York Rangers in 2014 but wasn’t signed and was scooped up by the Oilers as a free agent in the spring of 2017. He has an extremely positive attitude, even with only some of his sight back, and after a subsequent heart operation three weeks later to repair a problem.
Doctors haven’t shut the door on him returning.
“I remember the quote from the guy in Colorado who said a positive attitude with one arm is better than a negative attitude with two arms ... it’s what you make of the situation,” said Mantha. “You can sit and dwell on it, but negativity doesn’t get you anywhere.”
There was no warning that he’d have the scariest moment in his hockey life. There was no family history of blood clots. Just a freak thing. Patrick Russell dropped the puck to him at the offensive blueline, he wound up for a shot and that was it. He saw a stick (poke-check) coming, and it all went dark.
“I threw the puck away in a panic. They came down on a 3-on-2 and I couldn’t see anything out of my left eye. Keegan Lowe was on the ice with me and I was screaming, ‘I’m blind, I’m blind.’ I was in a panic to get off the ice. I looked down, I looked up and I thought ‘what the hell is going on?’ I didn’t feel a thing,” he said.
Mantha is on blood thinners now to prevent more clotting and trying to stay upbeat, doing cardio, but no weight training yet.
“There’s no timeline, nobody’s said anything about not playing any more. When I look out of my left eye now I have the peripheral vision but I don’t see anything close in the middle of my eye because the cells in the eye are damaged,” said Mantha. “But I can see colours and shapes with the peripheral vision in the left eye.”
That’s a lot better than how it was in February.
“I was fully blind when it happened but when I woke up the next morning, I had the peripheral vision. Nobody knows if it’ll get better, but it won’t get worse than what it is,” said Mantha.
The subsequent heart surgery was another blow, but necessary.
“They thought it might be a reason for the clot, they went in and did a little operation and fixed it,” he said. “My dream is still to play in the NHL and I’ve been as close to being there as I can be (AHL). It’s still a dream to do so.”