Career called on account of darkness. Initially, that was the greatest fear for Canucks centre Manny Malhotra, and a horrified audience at Rogers Arena who watched him take a deflected puck square in the left eye on March 16.
The incident recalled visions of Herb Score, baseball's best young pitcher of his day, taking a line drive to the eye socket which finished, for all intent and purposes, a future Hall of Fame career.
Tony Conigliaro, the second-youngest player to hit 100 home runs, saw his chance for Cooperstown evaporate on one pitch that fractured his cheekbone, nearly blinded him, and effectively ended his usefulness as a major-leaguer.
Then there's Calder Trophy winner Bryan Berard, Malhotra's former teammate in Columbus and with the New York Rangers, who needed seven operations to his right eye after being clipped by Marian Hossa's stick and became a shadow of what he could have been.
Yet it looks as if that murky future will not come to pass for Malhotra, whose return to playing status for the Stanley Cup Final, starting Wednesday against the Boston Bruins, is not only inexpressibly fantastic but falls just slightly short of miraculous.
Malhotra appeared before a media conference Saturday at Rogers Arena, following a spirited Canucks practice, with a droopy, bloodshot eye that might still require a medical procedure once the season is over. But he has been medically cleared to play, and Canucks coach Alain Vigneault has one more face card to throw at the opposing coach, Claude Julien, in their game of high-stakes poker.
With Malhotra available, or at least having the potential to be made available, Julien has one more worry line on his forehead. If he didn't have to factor in how to counter one of the NHL's best faceoff men before, Julien does now. The ability to win ownership of the puck at critical junctures was never more amply demonstrated than in the deciding game of the Western Conference final, when Ryan Kesler beat Joe Thornton on a faceoff in the Sharks zone that led to Kesler's tying goal, overtime, and Kevin Bieksa's screwball shot that sent San Jose on its way out of the playoffs.
Even if all that Malhotra does is play a few scant minutes on the fourth line, or take a 10-second shift to win a faceoff on a penalty kill and then head to the bench, or by the mere fact that he is simply dressed and sitting at the end of the bench, the Canucks and their fans can tap into a wellspring of emotion in one of this year's best feel-good stories in sports.
Strategically, Vigneault could play Malhotra at any time he feels his team or the crowd requires a lift -say, if the Canucks trail in the series, or lose the first game, and require that extra intangible to turn the course of the series' direction.
After all, who hasn't felt the goosebumps rising when eternal underdog Rudy Ruettiger finally takes the field in the eponymous movie, with a Notre Dame football crowd chanting as one, "Rudy, Rudy, Rudy ..."
And while Malhotra's story remains to be finished, the sight of No. 27 on the ice at Rogers Arena seems almost certain to illicit a similar response from Canuck fans: "Manny, Manny, Manny ..."
At heart, we're all suckers for a tale that touches the heart, including the cynical media, which was handed a roomservice story Saturday that deflected more probing questions about the health and readiness of other Canucks for the battle ahead. At the very least, the newser bought some of Malhotra's teammates a day of grace from having to come up with a new spin on things.
Still, there was nothing contrived, tactical or artificial in the timbre of Malhotra's voice, only genuineness and poignancy as his words cracked and he fought to stifle his emotions in expressing his gratitude to those who had reached out to him.
He's been given one of life's lucky breaks -from the expectation of permanent and irreversible damage to his vision, or the possibility that he would remain nothing more than a lucky talisman or spiritual touchstone in this year's Stanley Cup playoffs. Now, he could be a valued, on-ice contributor.
"Coming to where I was on March 16 to, potentially, playing in the Cup finals ... there have been a lot of ups and downs there," he admitted. "To be able to sit in front of you guys and say there's a possibility I will play this year ... it's definitely a very uplifting feeling for myself."
Malhotra said he received encouragement throughout his ordeal from former Canuck Mattias Ohlund, now a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who took a puck to his right eye 12 years ago and continues to play with reduced vision. But Berard, his former teammate, was especially supportive.
"He [Berard] was a big part of my recovery ... a real friend," Malhotra said. "Through the whole period, a great deal of things were up in the air. He did a great job of settling me down."
What really moved Malhotra, though, was the outpouring of support and concern, not only from Canucks ownership, management, coaches and players, but from scores of executives, coaches and skaters around the NHL with whom he had only passing acquaintance.
"They expressed their best wishes and thoughts, just for my health," he said. "It really put things into perspective."
His injury also changed his perspective on vision protection, something Malhotra had declined to use before. He had logged 777 NHL games without a face shield.
"I realize the importance of it now," he said. "I'll wear the full face shield for the rest of this year and see what my comfort level is with different pieces of equipment."
Will his damaged eye ever be as good as new?
"I can honestly say, I'm not 20-20 in that [left] eye," Malhotra admitted. "I've never been 20-20 in that eye. But I've been cleared medically to play."
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. It's still a bit of a guessing game, for everybody, including the Bruins. Vigneault's played this psychological game before, and it's never wise to show what you've got in the opening gambit.
mbeamish@vancouversun.com
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