The Mystery of Anthony Mantha

Photo by John McCreary/NHLI via Getty ImagesOn Monday night, Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson made their respective season debuts for the Caps, necessitating some roster juggling that included sending Aliaksei Protas and Joe Snively to Hershey and Anthony Mantha and Nicholas Aube-Kubel to the press box.

All of these decisions are defensible, given the state of the team’s forward corps: Protas has been good, but is waiver-exempt, so it was an easy move - he’ll be back. Snively has been used sparingly and was unlikely to garner too much attention as the team snuck him through waivers. Aube-Kubel has scored a couple of goals recently, but is a fourth-liner who doesn’t play special teams.

And…