In what has proven to be another up and down campaign for Anthony Mantha, the Detroit Red Wings right-winger is hopeful that he can put together a stretch drive that will enable him to post his second straight 20-goal season.

Mantha, 24, who missed 15 games due to a hand injury suffered in a fight, enters Sunday’s game at Vancouver with 12 goals in 34 games, and admitted to Detroitredwings.com that a 20-goal campaign was an objective he had in mind the rest of the way.

“I still need to step it up and I need to shoot more and I need to be a threat of scoring more goals,” Mantha said.

At the start of the season, Detroit coach Jeff Blashill projected Mantha as a potential 30-goal scorer.

“I think if you extrapolate the numbers out, he’d be close to 30 right now if he played a full 82 games, so he’s on his way,” Blashill said. The math does indicate that Mantha would be on a 29-goal pace over the course of 82 games. He scored 24 goals last season, a career high and the most of any Red Wings player.

“I think he’s been much more consistent, especially from that (Oct. 28) home Dallas game on,” Blashill said. “He’s had moments where he’s been elite’s elite. The thing I talked to him about is I don’t want him to be a good player. I want him to be an elite player.

“I’m gonna keep pushing hard on him so that he gets to that level. He’s got the ability to.”

Like many goal scorers, Mantha tends to illuminate red lamps in bunches, twice scoring three goals in a two-game span this season. But he also endures sizable goalless droughts, including an eight-game skid in October.

Part of the problem for Mantha is he can be unselfish, a fine trait in a human being but certainly not a productive one for a goal scorer. Too often, he will pass up a chance when in a potentially profitable shooting area to seek and set up a teammate for a scoring opportunity.

“I think for sure there’s a thing with him where he does have the ability to make plays,” Blashill said. “Sometimes that hurts his shot mentality. So certainly continuing to maintain that shot mentality but also, when he’s skates and moves his feet, he is an absolute force.

“There’s just very few guys in the league that skate as well as him that are as big as him, with the set of hands that he has. So we just gotta keep getting him into that habit of skating.”

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