Comments on: Malhotra disagrees with Canucks GM ending his season

By: steverolley

steverolley — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:42:51 +0000

I don`t believe Gillis for a second

He said he had a Luongo deal lined up….. lie
He said Cody Hodgeson was a problem in the dressing room …… lie
He keeps saying Veignault is one of the best coaches in the league …… lie

By: jpelle82

jpelle82 — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:36:01 +0000

its hard to win faceoffs if you cant see the linesman drop the puck. if he is having even the slightest issue with his depth perception he quickly becomes irrelevant – he is just a nice guy who can skate with a stick in his hand.

By: salmon90

salmon90 — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:22:10 +0000

How would losing one of the best faceoff guys in the league be of benefit to them? Not to mention the character/leadership this guy brings.

By: leepetertk

leepetertk — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:57:06 +0000

I would like to see somebody compile a few examples of where Malhotra was in danger due to limited vision. I didn`t notice examples watching the Canucks, but I did see a player who was clearly not as effective as he was prior to his eye injury. Elliott Friedman reported there was at least one example in Van vs. Min where Dany Heatley pulled up on Malhotra and thus if it was Cal Clutterbuck, Malhotra might have been injured. I have not seen this footage, but it has been mentioned.

I do believe Gillis when he says he did it for what he thinks is Malhotra`s long term health. Vancouver could use Malhotra`s faceoff abilities right now with Kesler also injured long term.

By: davebabychreturns

davebabychreturns — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:45:41 +0000

There would be a benefit to the team if they had some use for Manny’s cap space. Right now they don’t, and now that they are missing Kesler as well it’s unlikely that they’ll ever use Manny’s cap space (since they’d have to bring in about $6m of salary to even start to need it).

By: gramkind

gramkind — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:40:13 +0000

I don’t thinknyou can argue he wasn’t playing up to his cap hit and there isn’t some benefit to the team. However if they really didn’t care at all they could of traded him somewhere. Pretty sure a few teams would trade for a face off dynamo.

By: davebabychreturns

davebabychreturns — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:08:16 +0000

Yeah because if there’s one person you can expect to be objective about this, it’s the guy whose career is essentially over.

I’d expect that if Manny strongly disagreed with the Canucks he would ask them to waive or trade him so he could continue his career, or his agent would have spoken up, or he’d file a grievance with the PA, or he’d dispute the medical reports that have been used to put him on the IR.

But as we’ve seen before he’s a proud guy and I’m sure that admitting that you can’t effectively be aware of what’s going on around you is an extremely tough thing to do when it means the end of your playing days.

Frankly I don’t see how sitting Malhotra benefits the Canucks in the slightest. He’s still a better player than Aaron Volpatti or Andrew Ebbett which means he’s good enough to be in the lineup on at least a semi-regular basis. He’s not earning his cap hit but that means nothing until the team can actually complete a trade to use that cap space (and now, as with virtually every Canucks season, an important player is out of the lineup creating a ton of LTIR space anyway).

By: valoisvipers

valoisvipers — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:55:25 +0000

Heres hoping that all you people who posted that I was a fool for stating that VCR did this for their benefit and not his, will now eat an appropriate amount of crow.