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After the smokescreen faded yesterday, the result that many had believed was a foregone conclusion for several months became a reality.
The Vancouver Canucks did, indeed, take the coach’s son with the third overall pick. On balance, it’s almost definitely not as bad as it sounds. Partly because it sounds terrible.
But, as we’ve been told many times by scouts of all shapes and sizes, Malhotra did deserve top billing at this draft. The Victoria-born centre starred in his first year in the OHL with the Brantford Bulldogs, scoring 84 points in 67 games. He’s also a smart, defensively sound player. He put up 26 points in 15 Brantford playoff games.
The issue, if there is one, would be that Malhotra is a bit of a late bloomer. Sure, maybe that’s natural for a teenager in their first season in the OHL—to not have a great first half but to pour it on in the second. That makes some sense.
Some draft analysts like the pick a lot. Others were a little colder on it.
Would other teams have taken him at third overall? It doesn’t really seem like it, though we’ll probably never know. The fact that the next two teams on the board, the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Rangers, didn’t take Chase Reid, who was the overwhelming favourite right to be the Canucks’ pick right before the draft, maybe bodes well.
As I laid out on Thursday, I would have gone with big, mobile left-handed defender Carson Carels, who Calgary drafted at sixth overall.
The father-son factor is just that. It’s a factor. As much as Manny and Caleb and general manager Ryan Johnson want to say that it’s not, that’s just always going to be hard to believe. And sure, the athletic pedigree—in addition to being former player Manny’s son, his uncles are former NBA star Steve Nash and Team Canada soccer player Martin—is nice.
https://x.com/Canucks/status/2070673303455347118
The coach was also the sort of player—for the Canucks and Rangers and other teams—that you would typically envision as being a good coach and mentor. He was a faceoff specialist, a hard defensive player who didn’t necessarily have the high-end tools but was always a vital cog for his teams. Caleb does seem to have the tools. He could very well be the kind of complete centre that many teams in the league covet.
He’s also a bit further away from pro hockey than most third overall picks typically are. Malhotra will likely go to college this season. No doubt many Canucks fans will be looking to see how he handles his third different league in three years and praying that there’s no drop-off in his offensive output.
After that, depending on how college goes, it will be interesting to see if he jumps to the NHL right away. That would be what Canucks brass is hoping for, if I was going to guess.
In some ways, it does feel similar to what the Canucks did last year, when the team drafted Braeden Cootes at 15th overall—a relatively safe, sort of low-ceiling centre. But Cootes has already been showing quite well in his draft-plus-one season and made the Canucks out of training camp. No doubt many are hoping that Malhotra can flash some high-end offensive tools to justify his third overall selection.
In any event, it seems like a safe-ish pick at the very least. And if the best-case storyline can work out, with the two Malhotras guiding Vancouver for years to come, well, yeah, that would be great. But it seems like we’re always hoping for the best-case storyline here, doesn’t it?