There were bigger concerns that his vision and career were done.
But on Friday, Malhotra was cleared for “light contact” in practice, reason enough to celebrate — whether or not the popular assistant captain and valuable shutdown center will be ready next week for the Stanley Cup finals. That it is a possibility had teammates smiling.
“There’s a lot of ifs still,” the captain Henrik Sedin said. “But we’re just extremely happy to have him on the ice and to see where he is now from two or three days after the incident, when we were concerned about his future in terms of losing his vision.
“And now he’s back on the ice practicing with us, that’s good enough for us and it’s up to him now to see how he feels.”
Malhotra actually rejoined the Canucks at practice just over two weeks ago, at first skating in a team-colored tracksuit and full-face shield. The shield remains to protect an eye that has undergone at least two surgical procedures since being hit during a game March 16.
The team announced five days later that his season was over, but now, 10 weeks after the injury, General Manager Mike Gillis was “cautiously optimistic” that Malhotra would play for the Stanley Cup.
“Coming from the possibility of losing your eye to that stage this quickly is absolutely remarkable,” Gillis said. “If you’re looking at odds, the likelihood of him not experiencing any problems through this that most people go through, it’s remarkable. It’s almost stunning.”
Malhotra still has another surgery remaining, and the recovery time from that is six weeks. But Gillis said it did not need to be performed before he plays.
“The doctors need to be comfortable he is stable, his eye is stable, that absolutely no further damage could ever occur,” Gillis said, adding the team was not counting on anything until it gets that clearance.
“If things continue to go really well, we’re all cautiously optimistic.”
A long delay before the Cup finals start does not hurt Malhotra’s cause. With Boston and Tampa Bay playing Game 7 Friday night to determine their opponent, Game 1 is not until Wednesday night in Vancouver. And after that there are two more days off before the Canucks, who knocked out the San Jose Sharks in five games in the Western Conference finals Tuesday night, host Game 2.
Whether or not Malhotra, the 31-year-old faceoff and penalty-killing specialist, can have an immediate impact remains to be seen. An assistant captain despite being in the first season of a three-year, $7.5 million free-agent contract, Malhotra was second in the league at 61.7 percent on faceoffs, and a big part of a penalty-killing unit ranked No. 1 in the league when he was injured.
RSS Feed (xml)
0 comments:
Post a Comment