The Detroit Red Wings will have two of their highest recent picks playing at their annual Traverse City tournament.
On Thursday, the club announced that 2010 first-rounder Riley Sheahan and 2013 first-rounder Anthony Mantha will take part in the eight-team prospect tourney to be played at Center Ice Arena from Sept. 5-9.
Sheahan, 21, is perhaps best known for an incident last year in which he was arrested for “super-drunk” driving while carrying a teammate’s ID and wearing a purple Teletubby costume (click the link, it’ll all make sense.)
He’s reportedly stopped drinking since the incident and was called up by Detroit last April, playing 6:47 in a 1-0 loss to St. Louis.
Mantha, 18, was taken 20th overall at the ’13 Entry Draft, Detroit’s highest pick since taking Sheahan 21st overall (prior to Sheahan, the club’s highest pick was Jakub Kindl at No. 19 in 2005.)
While he’s a longshot to make the club, Mantha turned some heads in late July by saying he planned on making the NHL this season.
“For sure it is,” he told MLive.com, when asked if his mentality was NHL or bust for 2013-14. “If you go around the room and ask every player, I’m not sure there’s one that will tell you that’s not their goal.”
At 6-foot-4, 190 pounds, Mantha has good size. He’s also coming off a season in which he led the Quebec league in goals (50). Those two things are probably big reasons why he’s exuding confidence heading into Traverse City.