VANCOUVER — Only eight times in National Hockey League history has a father coached his son, but this will not be the first time Manny Malhotra coaches his oldest boy, Caleb.
Joann Malhotra, wife and mother, remembers the first time.
“When Caleb was quite young, they’d come home nattering and they’d be mad at each other,” Joann recalled in a phone call Friday night. “Caleb must have been 10-ish. And Manny would come home and say, ‘He’s not listening.’ And Caleb would be, ‘Dad this or that.’ It was actually me that said, ‘No more of this, you’re not coaching him any more, I’m not dealing with this.’ But other parents would want Manny to coach. So we just openly talked about it. Manny had to draw the line; he’s the adult. And Caleb had to take responsibility and realize, ‘Hey, taking criticism is going to be a big part of your journey and you can do it gracefully and learn, or you can pout.’
“Once they acknowledged those two things openly, Manny would literally say: ‘Do you want dad or do you want coach?’ And Caleb would give him an answer and we’d go from there. To be honest, that worked really well.”
Apparently so because on Friday, four weeks after naming Manny Malhotra their head coach, the Vancouver Canucks selected Caleb Malhotra third in the National Hockey League draft with the team’s highest pick in 27 years.
The first of the Malhotras’ four children, Caleb was born in Vancouver and the family has plenty of B.C. roots. Joann is from Victoria, the younger sister of basketball Hall-of-Famer Steve Nash. Another brother, Martin, played soccer professionally in Vancouver and still coaches here.
Caleb hugged his family members, including famous Uncle Steve, at the draft in Buffalo when the Canucks, under new general manager Ryan Johnson, ignored convention by selecting their coach’s son to be a foundational piece of the rebuilding team.
“We didn’t draft Manny’s kid; we drafted Caleb Malhotra,” Johnson told reporters at Rogers Arena. “In the process of selecting Caleb, that idea of what an extra variable might be for him (playing for his dad) was never in the equation. It just came down to who we wanted to be a Vancouver Canuck, who we wanted to go on this journey with who we took at No. 3, what we felt that person could bring into this building, into this dressing room and. . . would leave their mark on this organization.”
With the 24th pick, the Canucks drafted powerful goal-scoring Czech winger Adam Novotny as Vancouver selected two first-rounders for the first time since 2014.
Johnson and Manny Malhotra never discussed Canuck intentions regarding Caleb before Friday’s first round. The Canucks open Day 2 of the draft on Saturday with the first pick of the second round.
“I had no clue or no hints from anybody,” Caleb, an 18-year-old, two-way centre with talent and leadership qualities, said in a Zoom call. “I was just as blind as everybody else was. Just to hear my name get called at all, and then especially to this organization — it’s got a personal connection and big emotional meaning for me — I’m just so grateful. This couldn’t have been more perfect for me.”
After elite, playmaking wingers Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg were drafted first and second by Toronto and San Jose, respectively, Vancouver chose Malhotra over a handful of high-end, offensive defencemen who dominated the rest of the top 10.
Malhotra will attend Boston University next season after scoring 84 points in 67 games (plus 26 more in 15 playoff games) in his only Ontario Hockey League campaign with the Brantford Bulldogs.
So, Manny may have to wait another year or two before getting the chance to coach his son in the NHL.
“We have kind of been climbing the ladder (together),” Caleb said this week. “He’s been an assistant coach and then a head coach in the AHL, and has just been working his way up. I’ve kind of been doing the same, working my way from minor hockey to Tier-2 junior to the OHL and now, hopefully, to get drafted. It’s been really cool to kind of go on that journey with him. Even though it’s different paths, it’s kind of the same.”
Asked about his initial experiences coaching Caleb, Manny said: “When you’re a 12-year-old kid, 13-year-old kid, regardless if you’re coaching them in hockey, in soccer, if you’re talking about homework, if you’re talking about, you know, how to sweep the floor, dad knows nothing. That’s kind of a common trait that kids all go through — you don’t want to hear the advice of your parents. And that was the case.
“Whereas now, the evolution of him understanding that his dad also happens to be a professional hockey coach, he wants the information, he wants to learn more. It’s a much different dynamic than teaching a 12-year-old kid.”
Joann Malhotra is positive the father-son dynamic will work in the NHL the way it did in spring hockey when Caleb was a child.
“It is complicated,” she told us. “It’s not an easy thing to accomplish but I have every faith that they can do it. I don’t think, ‘Oh, this is going to be easy and we’ll just follow the road map.’ Because there is no road map, so we’re going to figure this out. But I know both Manny and Caleb really have a lot of integrity; they want to do things the right way.
“Caleb is very much like his dad and there are bound to be things we have to figure out. But you have that with every player, you have that with every organization. I have faith that they can handle it.”
Caleb was five years old when the Malhotras moved from Vancouver to Carolina in 2013 so Manny could continue playing after a serious eye injury ended his time with the Canucks. The family moved again to Montreal, where Manny’s NHL career ended two years later, and eventually settled in Toronto.
“But we always came back to Vancouver,” Joann said of their summers. “Our Vancouver home was always home.”
As Caleb walked to the draft stage in Buffalo to meet NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and receive his first Canucks jersey (as an adult), Joann and Manny pulled out their cellphones to snap photos like proud parents should.
“The emotions actually caught me off guard,” Joann said. “I was feeling really nervous for Caleb and when it happened, it was like this surreal moment. I really did think about all the years when he was little and he had these big dreams. I think everyone, when their kids say they want to go to the NHL or have these major dreams, people can brush it off. But I always thought that he could do it and that he would choose his path. He led the way. I’m proud of us as parents that we let him guide us.
“Not that his dad casts a massive shadow, but Caleb has earned this for himself and he deserved to have this moment without us looming over his shoulder.”
At third overall, Caleb beat Manny in the draft order by four spots. The elder Malhotra’s 991-game NHL career was preceded by the New York Rangers’ selection of him at No. 7 in the 1998 draft.
“His goal was always just to go higher than me,” Manny said, “and he made that very apparent when we started talking about the draft last year.
“What this comes down to, ultimately, is player and coach. I know people will kind of roll their eyes and say, ‘You can’t say it, it won’t be that way.’ But when we get to the arena, he knows he’s treated as I would (treat) any other player. That dynamic has worked for us. And when we leave the arena, there’s a very clear line that we’re not talking shop, I’m not coaching anymore. It’s just the dad conversations that take place.”