Geoff Burke - USA TODAY Sports
Mantha Opens Up About Suffering Ruptured Eardrum After Being Struck In Head By Puck & Road Back For Capitals: 'I Was All Unbalanced'
ARLINGTON, V.A. — Anthony Mantha was having one of his best games as a Washington Capital, standing in front of the net and looking for a hat trick in a Nov. 8 game against the Florida Panthers.
Then, he felt his ear pop as an Evgeny Kuznetsov shot went off a defender's stick and hit Mantha square in the ear.
Then, he remembers hitting the ice, bleeding and Capital One Arena starting to spin. Then, in his left ear, there was no noise. No input. Just silence.
"Once it happens, I was all unbalanced, dizzy on the ice. I knew I was bleeding, but I didn't feel like getting up, because I feel like it just would have been worse, maybe falling back over, so I waited for some help."
Athletic trainer Jason Serbus came out to attend to the 29-year-old. His teammates watched with bated breath, as the first thing that came to mind — and Mantha's mind — was John Carlson.
Carlson was struck by a 90 MPH slapshot last season, which caught him just near the ear and sent his helmet into his head, slicing open his temporal artery and fracturing his skull.
"That's the first thing that runs through your mind, you know?" Mantha recalled.
After that, his mind went to the possibility of a concussion; that was the only explanation he had at the time for the dizziness. But this wasn't just getting his bell rung.
"It's more than that," he said.
Whatever the diagnosis, he just wanted to get off the ice at that point.
Mantha was helped down the tunnel and received four to five stitches to repair the laceration to his ear. After that, he was taken to the hospital for CT scans to check for a skull fracture or internal bleeding of the brain. There, he received the diagnosis: a ruptured eardrum.
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"There's no timeline for that. They say six to eight weeks to get your hearing back, but for me to play doesn't really affect it, you know? You hear a little bit better today, but it's not the best," Mantha noted.
The Quebec native was left without hearing in his left ear for nearly a week, but it's started to improve recently. More prominently, his entire equilibrium and balance were thrown off, as he dealt with dizziness and vomiting for the first 36 hours. It was a difficult issue to deal with, as the only remedy was time.
"Everything in your ear is your balance. It's me puking for a couple hours, not feeling good. Everything going into that," Mantha said. "It was bad for me for maybe 36 hours, and then I got better. Once I got better, it was the easiest. It's not really rehab, because you can't really do anything."
For Mantha, the injury couldn't have come at a worse time. He had been starting to find his rhythm and confidence, as Connor McMichael seemed to be igniting a spark and helping him get some offense going.
"As soon as you get injured, you kind of just hate everything in that moment, but is' just bad luck," Mantha said. "Kuzy apologized a couple of times and I was like, 'Man, you're shooting the puck to score. Like it runs up a guy's blade; it's not like you shot it straight at me for fun."
After making it through concussion protocol and passing those tests, Mantha has been able to make good progress over the last few days, and the plan is for him to draw back into the lineup for Saturday's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The only lingering after-effect has been limited hearing, but it will continue to come back as time progresses.
"It was only the ear, not the head or anything," Mantha, who will be wearing ear guards moving forward, said.
As he prepares to come back, Mantha said he's looking forward to picking up where he left off and that his confidence is the highest it's been this season, and he's not letting a puck to the ear take away from that. He
"I was playing good individually, our line was playing good... I think we have three positive games and for me personally, I think I'll just keep going that way. Things were kind of heating up and playing the right way and not playing much in my zone, which is always a bonus if you're playing a lot with the puck in the o-zone," Mantha said, adding, "We need to move on, and luckily it's only been a week."
