Andre Pronovost did a lot of memorable things in his 10-season NHL career, including winning four Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens.
None of them may have meant more than a goal he watched from the Joe Louis Arena stands Thursday night.
Pronovost was watching his grandson, Detroit Red Wings rookie Anthony Mantha, play against the Canadiens. After spending his first five years with the Canadiens, Pronovost played parts of three seasons with the Red Wings in the early 1960s.
Mantha had immediately phoned his grandfather when he was called up from Grand Rapids last week.
“When he called me to tell me that he was coming to Detroit, I wasn’t surprised,” the 79-year-old Pronovost said during a second-period interview with FOX Sports Detroit. “I told him that he deserves to be here and to just keep working. He will be fine. Now I’m here watching him play, and that is very special.”
Minutes later, the night got much better. With the Red Wings leading 3-0 and on the power play, Mantha screened Ben Scrivens on Brad Richards’ shot. When Scrivens couldn’t handle it cleanly, Mantha flipped the rebound into the corner for his first NHL goal.
Tears welled up in Pronovost’s eyes as he filmed the celebration with his iPad.
“It means a lot to me, because I don’t know how many times he will get to see me play,” Mantha said after the game. “He came down for the game, and this was the first time he has seen me play in the NHL, so it couldn’t have worked out any better.”
As a kid, Mantha might have disagreed slightly with his 21-year-old self. Growing up in Longueuil, Quebec as the grandson of a member of the great 1950s Montreal dynasty, he dreamed of playing for Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, not the Red Wings.
“Montreal was always my team, so that makes this even more incredible,” he said. “My family was here, we were playing the Canadiens and we got a big win. What an unbelievable night.”
The ability to score is the reason that Mantha was called up to the NHL earlier this month. Two years ago, he scored 81 goals in 81 games for the Val-d’Or Foreurs, including 24 playoff goals as they won the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League championship.
In his first four games with the Red Wings, he recorded 11 shots on goal, so it was only a matter of time before he put one into the net.
“He’s got a big body and he’s got great hands, and that was a perfect situation for him,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “He’s created so many chances in his first few games that, with his talent, we knew it was only a matter of time before he got one to go. He can really help us, because we need more people to score right now.”
At the time, the goal seemed like an exclamation point on a rout, but it ended up being crucial. Montreal scored three times in the third period to pull within 4-3, leaving the Red Wings needing to kill off the final 12 minutes to win the game.
“We’ve got to be better than that,” Blashill said. “That’s a situation where you want to salt a game away by putting together one good shift after another. Instead, we give up a goal at the start of the third to give them life, then two more to give them a lot of life. I know we can play better hockey than that.”
That meant Mantha’s goal was officially the game winner on a night where Detroit’s postseason chances got a significant boost. The win, combined with Boston’s 4-1 loss to the Panthers, means that the Red Wings are now just one point behind the Bruins for third place in the Atlantic Division with a game in hand.
Things could get even better for Mantha, as the Red Wings face the Canadiens again next week in Montreal – the city where his grandfather was a star and where he always dreamed of playing.
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