— I know Manny Malhotra does not want to give up on his NHL career.
The Canucks’ decision to shut him down did not go over well with the veteran centre for obvious reasons. Mike Gillis said as much when he revealed that Malhotra did not agree with the club when it came to certain points of their argument to place him on IR. Malhotra still thinks he has something to offer as a player to an NHL team and it will be interesting to see if he pursues a job with another club when his current contract expires. It will also be interesting to see if another team would be willing to give him a chance after what Gillis said about him last week.
— I know the Canucks are infuriated with the insinuation that they placed Malhotra on IR to gain a roster spot and some cap space.
The timing may seem funky given that Kesler returned a day after the Malhotra announcement but Gillis and the Canucks are adamant this was strictly a health decision. Gillis says Malhotra was given games this season to prove that a full summer of training would help better protect himself on the ice. In the end the Canucks felt Malhotra was just as vulnerable this season as he was last season so they shut him down. Andrew Ebbett was waived on Monday, which would have opened up a roster spot. They could have also waived Andrew Alberts or Cam Barker to make room for Malhotra. Jordan Schroeder could have been sent down as well without any danger. I do believe it was pure coincidence that Kesler returned immediately after Malhotra was placed on LTIR.
— I know Malhotra would have considered carrying on this season with another team but the Canucks were having none of that.
That’s the right call. Waiving him or seeing if someone else was interested in his services would have been like washing their hands of the situation. The Canucks are placing Malhotra’s safety above all else and I believe the way they’ve handled this proves that.
— I know the Canucks showed Malhotra video footage from last season and this season of situations where they thought he was at risk on the ice.
I heard there was a play from the game in Minnesota this season where if Dany Heatley was Cal Clutterbuck, Malhotra could have been in trouble.
— I know there is more to this story that will likely never come out.
Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun said on our Sportsnet panel Sunday night that the Canucks know more about Malhotra’s vision now than they did last season, but I’m guessing we’ll never know what those details are.
— I know that players are not above fudging eye tests to pull the wool over their club teams.
Former Canuck Dixon Ward suffered an injury to his right eye when he was a child resulting in the loss of most functional vision in that eye (Ward says he maintained about 30 per cent of his vision in that eye). When Ward got to the NHL he was worried that the Canucks would find out how bad the vision was in that eye so he memorized the eye chart. Every year during physicals he could do the standard eye test by memorization and it worked every time.