Red Wings prospect Mantha out with broken leg

Detroit Red Wings top prospect Anthony Mantha will be out 6-8 weeks with a fractured right tibia, the team announced Thursday.

The 6-foot-4, 190-pound forward was injured Monday during a game at the Traverse City Prospect Tournament when his leg caught in a rut on the ice and he got hit.

"The puck was in the corner," Mantha told reporters. "I turned to my right at center ice and I hit a crack in the ice so my foot came back to the left, and me and another guy bumped into each other so my knee went sideways. It happened so fast you can't know exactly what happened."

General manager Ken Holland said surgery is not needed.

"He's going to be in crutches for a while, take the weight off," Holland said. "We think somewhere around six weeks he should be back up and running and skating and from there playing. In the meantime we got lots of other people looking for opportunity."

Mantha, who turned 20 on Tuesday, was bidding to become the first player to jump from junior hockey to the NHL for the Red Wings since 1999. The 20th pick of the 2013 NHL Draft, Mantha led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League last season with 57 goals and 120 points in 57 regular-season games. He also had 24 goals and 38 points in 24 QMJHL playoff games to help the Val-d'Or Foreurs win the league title.

He is No. 10 on the NHL.com Top 60 prospect ranking list.

"He'll get an opportunity, whether it's playing on the wing with [Pavel Datsyuk] or [Henrik Zetterberg]," Red Wings special assistant to the GM Kris Draper said earlier this month. "But he's going to get an opportunity to play with one of those guys. Then it's really up to him. We all feel Anthony is a special player and somebody who has earned an opportunity to make the big club."

Now, however, he'll have to wait a bit for his NHL opportunity.

"Obviously all my training for this summer and everything I put in … it's pretty hard," Mantha said. "But if everything goes well and I come back to my capabilities, if I do the right things, they'll give me my chance anyway. I'll build off of that and I'll come back as soon as I can."