Manny Malhotra coaches his first NHL game tonight in Edmonton, and the Canucks couldn't have drawn a harsher opening assignment.
Tuesday night's puck drop puts a rebuilding roster in front of Connor McDavid and an Oilers group that swept all four of its preseason games.
Vancouver limped through camp at 1-3-0. The lone win came Saturday, a 4-3 decision over Seattle.
None of that seems to rattle the 46-year-old. He and his staff picked their first 23-man roster Monday, and the mandate he handed them fits on an index card.
"We want our team committed to being hard to play against, being heavy in puck battles, and ... willing to get to net fronts," Malhotra said.
That pitch fits a club coming off a last-place finish. Nobody in that locker room is selling a timeline, and they shouldn't.
Canucks hand the bench to the man they once pushed out
Back in 2011, a gruesome eye injury changed everything. Nine games into the 2012-13 season, the club's front office told him he'd no longer be allowed to play for Vancouver.
He and his wife, Joann, wept at the news. He kept going anyway, with stops in Carolina and Montreal, and finished with 991 NHL games for seven teams.
"I was definitely jaded," he admitted. "Having something taken away from you is never an easy thing."
Picture a restaurant rehiring the chef it once showed the door, then asking him to rescue a kitchen that just landed the worst reviews in town.
His head coaching résumé is two AHL seasons in Abbotsford. The first one ended with the franchise's first Calder Cup.
Vancouver's new general manager waved off the inexperience talk Monday. "He's got a life full of experience," he said.
The money at the top hasn't gone anywhere. Elias Pettersson carries an $11,600,000 cap hit, and Thatcher Demko sits at $8,500,000.
That's a heavy load for a club preaching patience. Paying top-line money while openly refusing to set targets is an awkward fit, and it gets more awkward every week the standings don't move.
Across the ice, Leon Draisaitl's $14,000,000 hit leads Edmonton's payroll. Mike Babcock, hired by the Oilers in June, runs the other bench.
So what does a good night look like for Vancouver? Probably 60 structured minutes and a bench that doesn't sag after the first breakdown.
The rematch comes fast. Edmonton visits Thursday, then Calgary and Vegas follow on a Saturday-Sunday back-to-back at home.
After that, a six-game road trip from Carolina to Tampa Bay. One stop comes against the Rangers, the club that drafted him seventh overall in 1998.
"I'm dependent on everybody else," he said of the jump from player to coach. Tonight, everybody else is a roster widely expected to finish near the bottom again.
Effort is an easy standard to sell in September. The harder question is whether that camp energy survives the first ugly week on the road.
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Is Manny Malhotra the right coach to lead the Canucks through this rebuild?
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