Part 1 - Elite Skating, Suffocating Defense, Snack Sized Power Forward Moves, And Faceoff Mediocrity
Malhotra is one of my most watched prospects this year, in large part because my evaluation almost instantly diverged radically from the general consensus. I simply could not even begin to find what others apparently saw so easily with this player, from his "elite" skating, to his "elite" passing, to his "elite" defense. Claims of such appeared akin to sightings of Bigfoot. Ever common, never confirmed.
I don't need everyone, or even anyone, to agree with any of my takes on a player, and I certainly won't pretend that I've watched every game this season for any of these prospects. I also know how inconsistent I was at that age, even in terms of puckhandling and skating, and two people may come away with radically different impressions of the same prospect by accidentally watching either their best or worst games. This is also my first year scouting, so plenty of mistakes are bound to happen, and if I kept doing this years from now I'm sure I'd criticize my current list.
So, again, this is not about people agreeing with me on any prospect. In fact, I find it more interesting when my evaluation differs from the general consensus. No, the issue is the blatant gaslighting, and the many things which are said about Malhotra that are obviously untrue, and easily disproven, yet are repeated ad naseum.
THE ELITE SKATER... WHO'S TENTH FASTEST ON HIS OWN CHL TEAM
This one's more of a victory lap at this point, but when I got into this hobby months ago people were constantly bloviating about Malhotra's elite skating. Then I'd watch his games, and wonder why I never saw it. This is not like Chase Reid, or Nikita Scherbakov, where there is a part of their skating that is elite (transitions/edgework), which can temporarily hoodwink someone into assuming the rest is. Malhotra is not even remotely close to being an elite skater in any respect. This is made all the more ridiculous, because he plays on a loaded team full of guys who clearly skate better than him.
For example, below we see w/c Jet Luchanko using pure speed off the faceoff to simply skate around the Barrie Colts defenseman, in game 7 of their OHL conference finals. Luchanko then, in true Luchanko-ian fashion, falls and fails to get a shot off. One of the most weird prospects I have ever seen, in that he drives play so well, even showing decent/good hands, and then so consistently trips at the finish line, in this case almost literally.
Nevertheless, he has elite, or at least excellent speed for this level. I'd like you to let that video run a little. Don't skip ahead to the Malhotra shifts, watch the other players on the Bulldogs as well. Get a good feel for them. When you've done that, remind yourself that there are people who want you to believe that Malhotra is an elite skater, when he's probably about the tenth fastest guy on his own team. And all you ever needed to do to understand this was to watch a single Bulldogs game.
Frankly, tenth might be generous. If the Brantford Bulldogs all lined up and skated from one length of the ice to the other, Luchanko would probably tap the end boards before Malhotra made it into the offensive zone, and the same might be true for his own linemate Cooper Dennis. Danford(really liked that guy), Jiricek, Benak, even some random undrafted guy I've never heard of named Ryder Boulton, are also undeniably faster than him. Even that kind of race flatters Malhotra, because his main issue is his sluggish acceleration. If that team raced from one side of the ice to the other and back, he'd be one of the last players.
But again, this is more of a victory lap at this point, because the ludicrous projections of him as having "game breaking speed" - no really, I heard that term used to describe him - have, thankfully, mostly gone the way of the Dodo. Nevertheless, while the consensus on him has gone from "elite skater" to "well, his skating isn't such a problem that he couldn't be a top five pick," which kind of seems like a big deal, his draft stock has slid from approximately third overall to maybe seventh. Still, I do appreciate a touch of reality seeping in here. It's better than nothing.
Unlike this next part.
THE TWO WAY GUY... WHO SUCKS AT DEFENSE
I've posted on this site before about how bad Malhotra is defensively, and have been repeatedly rebutted. One user pointed me to a defensive highlight compilation made by one "Simon St-Laurent". I don't make a habit of watching highlight videos, as I think they give a very unbalanced impression of a player. Luckily, even a choice selection of Malhotra's defensive efforts is so mid that it barely qualifies.
For example, you can watch Malhotra get roasted on the backcheck, in his own highlight video.
On the play above he starts out at least five feet in front of the Frontenac player, and ends up five feet behind him by the high slot. Partly this is because he's not very fast, but partly this is because he stops moving his feet for no good reason. It may also be due to a lack of awareness. We don't know, because Simon edited out the beginning of the play, so the context isn't there. What we do know is that Malhotra is bailed out by a terrible pass, which puts him in position to almost touch the puck, and he whiffs on the late pokecheck anyway.
There is no universe where this is a good play, let alone one that belongs on any sort of highlight video.
Here's another play that somehow made it onto the "highlight" reel.
Malhotra oozes his way over on the forecheck. Then he whiffs on the poke check, but is saved from being utterly dangled by that player because the puck hits his right skate. But then the center gets the puck back, and makes a pass up the boards. So... a failed forecheck, where luck saved him from complete embarrassment.
The lowlight reel continues, with a play showing his sluggish feet losing him a footrace, forcing him to cope by diving for the puck, and passing it directly to the other team's d-man.
At 16:15 in the video Simon says the following.
Below we see Malhotra attempt to stickcheck the Kingston player, but fail as he passes to his teammate. The play continues into the defensive zone, where the man who displays an astonishing level of detail in his game wanders away from his man on the boards, leaving him to walk out in front uncontested.
Here's another play where the details focused 9000 IQ defensive superstar drifts into the corner for no apparent reason, leaving two men alone in the slot. Luckily for our intrepid hero, the Sudbury player doesn't fire a quick pass over to his teammate (Malhotra's guy), so Malhotra can recover in time to get a stick on him.
I can't stress enough that this is not a lowlight reel I made for Malhotra. This is supposed to show you the upper end of his defensive play, yet it contains many plays which are benchable, and many more that, if not outright bad, can be charitably described as "things CHL players do."
Above, the puck squirts free and Malhotra picks it up. He then shovels a tumbling, end over end pass to Cooper, who easily outskates the defenseman and almost turns it into a breakaway.
Below, Malhotra tries to stick check the NTDP player. He partially succeeds, before clearly losing the positioning battle on the boards, then lucking out as the player fans on the clearing attempt.
Here are two plays in a row where Malhotra checks a massively disadvantaged player who were already being engaged by his teammates. And he finishes the first play with a truly awful pass in between both his defensemen.
Here his teammates win him the puck. He goes down and tries to dangle the d-man, and fails like always. The d-man who stripped him of the puck then jukes him in the corner. Malhotra ineffectually slaps at him many times, before eventually getting the puck from behind.
Interspersed between a load of filler plays to pad out the runtime are some genuinely nice plays, although it's amazing that anyone considers anything they see in here indicative of a top tier, special defensive talent.
I'll praise Simon for not editing out the start of this play, I just think it's funny how hard it is to find good Malhotra plays not sandwiched between abjectly bad ones.
Let's crosscheck that claim with reality. Below is a play from the third period of game 7, OHL conference finals. Bulldogs down by 2. Caleb Malhotra in on the forecheck. What do we expect to see?
Well I hope you expected to see him getting getting roasted by the defenseman, before lazily waving his stick in his general direction while "backchecking". The Colts d-man passes, and skates (not even that hard) up the ice. Luckily for that defenseman, the defensive wizard who has never taken a shift off is skating even less hard, so what should have been a 3 on 3 rush becomes a 3 on 2. The two Bulldogs defensemen slide to their guys, leaving the rushing defenseman alone beside the net, having beaten 200 ft complete two way center Malhotra to the post by ten feet despite not skating that hard himself. The puck jumps over his stick at the last second, that act of serendipity being the only thing preventing the Colts from going up 3-0.
Not content with giving a beer league backchecking effort that should have cost his team a goal, Malholtra gets the puck in the corner and immediately gifts it to the other team with an insane backhand pass that gets intercepted in the high slot.
This entire play started 35 seconds into Malhotra's shift, wherein he had previously done nothing but coast around. So either his conditioning is atrocious, he's incredibly lazy, or he just doesn't care about playing defense despite his team facing elimination. Whatever the case, considering the context it's a contender for the worst defensive play that I saw from any prospect not named Xavier Villeneuve.
But hey, that's just one play. I'm sure that the only time he decided not to backcheck just happened to be in the third period of game 7 of the OHL conference finals. I'm sure if we pick some random game of his on YouTube we won't find a single example of -
Above we see a play where Malhotra starts as the highest forward in the zone, and ends as the last forward to leave the zone. He lazily strides to get back into the play, and is the last man on the ice into the defensive zone.
Below we see a truly disgusting play where Malhotra starts by doing what he does best, turning the puck over for no reason.
He makes up for this by not even attempting to backcheck. Despite being the highest forward in the zone at the time of the turnover, and the guy responsible for the turnover, he is the last to leave the zone, and by far the last to make it back to the defensive zone. Once he gets there, boy does he ever hustle. I mean, my goodness. This man might have even taken a stride or two.
Actually, that was the second time he didn't backcheck on that very same shift. Guy had coasted around while his teammates did all the work, and then let them again do all the work after his turnover. Amazing work ethic.
Let's go ahead and watch Malhotra's defensive zone play. I'll restrict this to 5v5, as there are reasons to be more reserved when penalty killing. I'll also include all the sustained defensive zone play, lest I be accused of cherry picking.
His first shift with any sustained time in the defensive zone starts below. Please note the comically low amount of steps Malhotra takes.
Pay special attention to the play starting from 5:18. He doesn't bother skating to his man in the corner. Instead, he waits, then slowly oozes towards him and away from the net. This is the worst of both worlds, as it leaves another man free in the slot. Terrible effort and worse awareness.
Next shift. Again, it is comical how few steps he takes for the entire shift. After his team gets the puck he's too lazy to bother making himself a breakout option. Rossetto throws the puck to where he should be, and it's a turnover. The shift ends with the Battalion scoring.
Yes of course, Rossetto should have flipped the puck off the wall and out. Still, your center is supposed to make himself an outlet pass, and I don't think five hard strides per shift is too much to ask for from my high motor defensive maestro with relentless pressure and unbreakable work ethic.
The third 5v5 shift where Malhotra spends any time in the defensive zone. I'm starting to think this guy's got a stride budget or something.
Goodness gracious, look at that relentless pressure! There really needs to be a rule change or something. This kid's taking the offense out of the game with his high effort, suffocating play.
It is frankly downright surreal going from the defensive zone tape of Suvanto to Malhotra. Suvanto is as big as a fridge and quick as a cat, and couples that with a legitimately high motor. I watch that for a while, then treat myself to the premier 1C two way defensive detail oriented non-stop motor of Malhotra and see this.
The final 5v5 shift in the defensive zone. Here Malhotra at least shows some effort. He still has those plodding legs, but I'll take anything at this point.
Everyone misses certain games when evaluating prospects. We can all get very different impressions of players because of this. But man, what are the odds that literally every single game I've seen of Malhotra includes multiple egregious backchecking efforts? What are the odds that this high motor defensive juggernaut would so consistently look like a lazy, ineffectual slug in the defensive zone? It's just such a wacky, improbable turn of events!
For the record, no forward has ever "always" been the first guy to backcheck on his line, even ones who actually show defensive responsibility. That was a totally bizarre thing to claim, especially about Malhotra.
He's also not even in the same stratosphere as a true, elite forechecker. For that, take a look at my post on Gleb Pugachyov, where you can watch the seventeen year old outskate, outwork, out muscle, and downright bully adult KHL defensemen on the forecheck. Pugachyov is a better athlete relative to men than Malhotra is to random CHL teenagers, and works about ten times as hard.
On this forecheck below, Malhotra has just jumped off the bench, fresh as can be, ready to home in on the tired defensemen and make some magic happen. And my goodness does he ever become at least a mild nuisance.
This is actually one of the best Malhotra forechecks that I have ever seen. I just clipped it because it was at the start of the game, and I didn't want to waste any more time finding examples of what it looks like 95% of the time Malhotra uses that "magic" stick of his on the hapless opponents. He mildly annoys them, slashes at their hands, and then they forget all about it. After this play, it takes him eight seconds to arrive in the defensive zone, which prevents him from corralling the puck that bounces over Dennis' stick in the high slot.
Tremendous work ethic. Always back checks. Leadership qualities. Make him the captain now.
I remember seeing those clips of Malhotra stripping the puck away from opponents and getting a bit of a weird feeling. Every crafty puck thief I had ever seen, Datsyuk, Marchand, Gallagher (in minor hockey), had quick hands and feet, while Malhotra has neither. Every great forechecker has tremendous speed, quickness, and power.
When watching Malhotra's games, you quickly learn that there's nothing special about his pokechecking ability. He just spams low percentage pokechecks, mostly as a cope for lacking the athleticism to get and maintain proper positioning. These mostly failed checks get edited out, and we're left with compilations that appear to exist for no reason other than to hoodwink people into thinking he's the next Datsyuk.
For the ultimate Real Malhotra experience, watch this shift where he gets the puck on the PK. Then loses control of it for no reason (amazing hands), and when the puck goes back into his end he gives a Villeneuve-esque effort, coasting and failing to pokecheck the forward, before just kinda being on the ice for the rest of the shift. I know I said I didn't want to include penalty kills, but it's truly hilarious the discrepancy between his reputational effort and the real thing. Almost every time he's in the defensive zone it looks like this.
I managed to find one breath of sanity on Malhotra's defensive non-ability somewhere on the internet. This Scouching guy has him fifteenth, still absurdly high, but his blurb matches up perfectly with what I've seen.
Scouching:
The guy praised as a complete 2 way defensive maestro is a defensive mediocrity, even at the CHL level, in addition to being a turnover machine. So much so that even the people hyping him up with heavily edited compilations of his defensive highlights can't help but show this.
THE LITTLE POWER FORWARD WHO COULDN'T
I have no idea who this "Daniel Gee Scouting" character is, but I'm pretty sure this video of his is to blame for the idea that Caleb Malhotra is some sort of semi-power forward, with amazing contact balance, who chains together plays and blah blah maestro at fending off defenders with one hand blah blah contact details.
It's nauseating the way people talk about him like he's this gargantuan, hulking monstrosity. Well guys, the combine results are in. How'd the biggest man since Shaquille O'Neill measure up?
The Hockey Writers:
Do we have any examples of real power forwards in this draft? What's that look like? Can we get a refresher? How big are those guys?
I could have also used Hemming, or even Belchetz, off the top of my head, I just didn't have their tape in front of me. What I do have is this other video hyping up Malhotra, which shows what happens 90% of the time Malhotra uses his "contact details with power game potential" in a real game.
Sure did look easy for that random OHL guy to bump Malhotra off the puck, and then drive him ten feet further into the offensive zone and force his team to regroup. Maybe that's because Malhotra is almost 6'2 and 185lbs, not almost 6'7 and 255lbs. He does not magically possess the strength of a man seventy pounds his senior, he's just an average sized OHL player who often tries the most common move in hockey. Occasionally it works, and then this Daniel Gee guy edits all the successful attempts together into one video and mindless automatons just assume this is some sort of representative sample of not just who Malhotra is at the CHL level, but who he will become at the NHL level.
I really do think that people who watch highlight videos should be forced to watch lowlight videos, or be silo'd off to some other echo chamber to scream into the void. I don't have the time to make any of those, but it is pretty trivial to find a play where Malhotra loses a physical battle, even to a small CHL player. For example, does he looks like a power forward here? Would you say that the way he gets knocked off the puck by a small guy shows great contact details and power game potential?
BTW, that play shows something else. After Malhotra gets easily knocked off the puck by some random guy, Cooper Dennis comes in and bails him out. The puck eventually comes back to Malhotra, and shovels a tumbling, end over end pass in the general direction of Cooper Dennis, which works because he got behind the defenseman and gets in on a breakaway. We'll see this theme come up again later.
THE FACEOFF STUD... WHO LOSES THE MAJORITY OF HIS DRAWS
If there's one thing you can count on a Malhotra for, it's a faceoff win.
NHL:
I played two years of major midget, one year of Jr. B, and two years in the BCHL. I can say that I never once was on a team that practiced faceoffs. And even if I had been on one, the coaches wouldn't have known how to teach us anyway. The sorry state of coaching in Canada is a story for another time, but Caleb has benefited from not just growing up with an NHL coach for a dad, but a true faceoff specialist right there in the house. This is not even speculation, the article explicitly states this.
I say this because I know that he's going to have a great faceoff percentage, I just want people to calibrate this to -
My goodness, this boy is a prodigy. If he keeps at it one day he might even be average at the OHL level. The talent is undeniable. Look, your lying eyes might tell you that he's mediocre in the faceoff circle and defensively, but his last name is Malhotra. So come on, just get with the program already.
END PART 1
Writing this up took longer than I hoped, and I haven't even gotten to his insanely overhyped offense, which consists of standing in front of the net on a powerhouse team that constnatly drives play, shoveling the puck in the general direction of his much more talented linemates, and spamming out one on one moves succeed once in a blue moon. That part'll go much quicker.
Malhotra is one of my most watched prospects this year, in large part because my evaluation almost instantly diverged radically from the general consensus. I simply could not even begin to find what others apparently saw so easily with this player, from his "elite" skating, to his "elite" passing, to his "elite" defense. Claims of such appeared akin to sightings of Bigfoot. Ever common, never confirmed.
I don't need everyone, or even anyone, to agree with any of my takes on a player, and I certainly won't pretend that I've watched every game this season for any of these prospects. I also know how inconsistent I was at that age, even in terms of puckhandling and skating, and two people may come away with radically different impressions of the same prospect by accidentally watching either their best or worst games. This is also my first year scouting, so plenty of mistakes are bound to happen, and if I kept doing this years from now I'm sure I'd criticize my current list.
So, again, this is not about people agreeing with me on any prospect. In fact, I find it more interesting when my evaluation differs from the general consensus. No, the issue is the blatant gaslighting, and the many things which are said about Malhotra that are obviously untrue, and easily disproven, yet are repeated ad naseum.
THE ELITE SKATER... WHO'S TENTH FASTEST ON HIS OWN CHL TEAM
This one's more of a victory lap at this point, but when I got into this hobby months ago people were constantly bloviating about Malhotra's elite skating. Then I'd watch his games, and wonder why I never saw it. This is not like Chase Reid, or Nikita Scherbakov, where there is a part of their skating that is elite (transitions/edgework), which can temporarily hoodwink someone into assuming the rest is. Malhotra is not even remotely close to being an elite skater in any respect. This is made all the more ridiculous, because he plays on a loaded team full of guys who clearly skate better than him.
For example, below we see w/c Jet Luchanko using pure speed off the faceoff to simply skate around the Barrie Colts defenseman, in game 7 of their OHL conference finals. Luchanko then, in true Luchanko-ian fashion, falls and fails to get a shot off. One of the most weird prospects I have ever seen, in that he drives play so well, even showing decent/good hands, and then so consistently trips at the finish line, in this case almost literally.
Nevertheless, he has elite, or at least excellent speed for this level. I'd like you to let that video run a little. Don't skip ahead to the Malhotra shifts, watch the other players on the Bulldogs as well. Get a good feel for them. When you've done that, remind yourself that there are people who want you to believe that Malhotra is an elite skater, when he's probably about the tenth fastest guy on his own team. And all you ever needed to do to understand this was to watch a single Bulldogs game.
Frankly, tenth might be generous. If the Brantford Bulldogs all lined up and skated from one length of the ice to the other, Luchanko would probably tap the end boards before Malhotra made it into the offensive zone, and the same might be true for his own linemate Cooper Dennis. Danford(really liked that guy), Jiricek, Benak, even some random undrafted guy I've never heard of named Ryder Boulton, are also undeniably faster than him. Even that kind of race flatters Malhotra, because his main issue is his sluggish acceleration. If that team raced from one side of the ice to the other and back, he'd be one of the last players.
But again, this is more of a victory lap at this point, because the ludicrous projections of him as having "game breaking speed" - no really, I heard that term used to describe him - have, thankfully, mostly gone the way of the Dodo. Nevertheless, while the consensus on him has gone from "elite skater" to "well, his skating isn't such a problem that he couldn't be a top five pick," which kind of seems like a big deal, his draft stock has slid from approximately third overall to maybe seventh. Still, I do appreciate a touch of reality seeping in here. It's better than nothing.
Unlike this next part.
THE TWO WAY GUY... WHO SUCKS AT DEFENSE
I've posted on this site before about how bad Malhotra is defensively, and have been repeatedly rebutted. One user pointed me to a defensive highlight compilation made by one "Simon St-Laurent". I don't make a habit of watching highlight videos, as I think they give a very unbalanced impression of a player. Luckily, even a choice selection of Malhotra's defensive efforts is so mid that it barely qualifies.
For example, you can watch Malhotra get roasted on the backcheck, in his own highlight video.
On the play above he starts out at least five feet in front of the Frontenac player, and ends up five feet behind him by the high slot. Partly this is because he's not very fast, but partly this is because he stops moving his feet for no good reason. It may also be due to a lack of awareness. We don't know, because Simon edited out the beginning of the play, so the context isn't there. What we do know is that Malhotra is bailed out by a terrible pass, which puts him in position to almost touch the puck, and he whiffs on the late pokecheck anyway.
There is no universe where this is a good play, let alone one that belongs on any sort of highlight video.
Here's another play that somehow made it onto the "highlight" reel.
Malhotra oozes his way over on the forecheck. Then he whiffs on the poke check, but is saved from being utterly dangled by that player because the puck hits his right skate. But then the center gets the puck back, and makes a pass up the boards. So... a failed forecheck, where luck saved him from complete embarrassment.
The lowlight reel continues, with a play showing his sluggish feet losing him a footrace, forcing him to cope by diving for the puck, and passing it directly to the other team's d-man.
At 16:15 in the video Simon says the following.
Below we see Malhotra attempt to stickcheck the Kingston player, but fail as he passes to his teammate. The play continues into the defensive zone, where the man who displays an astonishing level of detail in his game wanders away from his man on the boards, leaving him to walk out in front uncontested.
Here's another play where the details focused 9000 IQ defensive superstar drifts into the corner for no apparent reason, leaving two men alone in the slot. Luckily for our intrepid hero, the Sudbury player doesn't fire a quick pass over to his teammate (Malhotra's guy), so Malhotra can recover in time to get a stick on him.
I can't stress enough that this is not a lowlight reel I made for Malhotra. This is supposed to show you the upper end of his defensive play, yet it contains many plays which are benchable, and many more that, if not outright bad, can be charitably described as "things CHL players do."
Above, the puck squirts free and Malhotra picks it up. He then shovels a tumbling, end over end pass to Cooper, who easily outskates the defenseman and almost turns it into a breakaway.
Below, Malhotra tries to stick check the NTDP player. He partially succeeds, before clearly losing the positioning battle on the boards, then lucking out as the player fans on the clearing attempt.
Here are two plays in a row where Malhotra checks a massively disadvantaged player who were already being engaged by his teammates. And he finishes the first play with a truly awful pass in between both his defensemen.
Here his teammates win him the puck. He goes down and tries to dangle the d-man, and fails like always. The d-man who stripped him of the puck then jukes him in the corner. Malhotra ineffectually slaps at him many times, before eventually getting the puck from behind.
Interspersed between a load of filler plays to pad out the runtime are some genuinely nice plays, although it's amazing that anyone considers anything they see in here indicative of a top tier, special defensive talent.
Simon says this while running footage that starts with Malhotra losing the puck for no reason while failing to dangle someone - a play that had no upside, might I add, considering they were on the PK - before falling over. But, to be fair, he makes up for his embarrassing turnover with a nice pokecheck of Novotny.
I'll praise Simon for not editing out the start of this play, I just think it's funny how hard it is to find good Malhotra plays not sandwiched between abjectly bad ones.
Let's crosscheck that claim with reality. Below is a play from the third period of game 7, OHL conference finals. Bulldogs down by 2. Caleb Malhotra in on the forecheck. What do we expect to see?
Well I hope you expected to see him getting getting roasted by the defenseman, before lazily waving his stick in his general direction while "backchecking". The Colts d-man passes, and skates (not even that hard) up the ice. Luckily for that defenseman, the defensive wizard who has never taken a shift off is skating even less hard, so what should have been a 3 on 3 rush becomes a 3 on 2. The two Bulldogs defensemen slide to their guys, leaving the rushing defenseman alone beside the net, having beaten 200 ft complete two way center Malhotra to the post by ten feet despite not skating that hard himself. The puck jumps over his stick at the last second, that act of serendipity being the only thing preventing the Colts from going up 3-0.
Not content with giving a beer league backchecking effort that should have cost his team a goal, Malholtra gets the puck in the corner and immediately gifts it to the other team with an insane backhand pass that gets intercepted in the high slot.
This entire play started 35 seconds into Malhotra's shift, wherein he had previously done nothing but coast around. So either his conditioning is atrocious, he's incredibly lazy, or he just doesn't care about playing defense despite his team facing elimination. Whatever the case, considering the context it's a contender for the worst defensive play that I saw from any prospect not named Xavier Villeneuve.
But hey, that's just one play. I'm sure that the only time he decided not to backcheck just happened to be in the third period of game 7 of the OHL conference finals. I'm sure if we pick some random game of his on YouTube we won't find a single example of -
Above we see a play where Malhotra starts as the highest forward in the zone, and ends as the last forward to leave the zone. He lazily strides to get back into the play, and is the last man on the ice into the defensive zone.
Below we see a truly disgusting play where Malhotra starts by doing what he does best, turning the puck over for no reason.
He makes up for this by not even attempting to backcheck. Despite being the highest forward in the zone at the time of the turnover, and the guy responsible for the turnover, he is the last to leave the zone, and by far the last to make it back to the defensive zone. Once he gets there, boy does he ever hustle. I mean, my goodness. This man might have even taken a stride or two.
Actually, that was the second time he didn't backcheck on that very same shift. Guy had coasted around while his teammates did all the work, and then let them again do all the work after his turnover. Amazing work ethic.
Let's go ahead and watch Malhotra's defensive zone play. I'll restrict this to 5v5, as there are reasons to be more reserved when penalty killing. I'll also include all the sustained defensive zone play, lest I be accused of cherry picking.
His first shift with any sustained time in the defensive zone starts below. Please note the comically low amount of steps Malhotra takes.
Pay special attention to the play starting from 5:18. He doesn't bother skating to his man in the corner. Instead, he waits, then slowly oozes towards him and away from the net. This is the worst of both worlds, as it leaves another man free in the slot. Terrible effort and worse awareness.
Next shift. Again, it is comical how few steps he takes for the entire shift. After his team gets the puck he's too lazy to bother making himself a breakout option. Rossetto throws the puck to where he should be, and it's a turnover. The shift ends with the Battalion scoring.
Yes of course, Rossetto should have flipped the puck off the wall and out. Still, your center is supposed to make himself an outlet pass, and I don't think five hard strides per shift is too much to ask for from my high motor defensive maestro with relentless pressure and unbreakable work ethic.
The third 5v5 shift where Malhotra spends any time in the defensive zone. I'm starting to think this guy's got a stride budget or something.
Goodness gracious, look at that relentless pressure! There really needs to be a rule change or something. This kid's taking the offense out of the game with his high effort, suffocating play.
It is frankly downright surreal going from the defensive zone tape of Suvanto to Malhotra. Suvanto is as big as a fridge and quick as a cat, and couples that with a legitimately high motor. I watch that for a while, then treat myself to the premier 1C two way defensive detail oriented non-stop motor of Malhotra and see this.
The final 5v5 shift in the defensive zone. Here Malhotra at least shows some effort. He still has those plodding legs, but I'll take anything at this point.
Everyone misses certain games when evaluating prospects. We can all get very different impressions of players because of this. But man, what are the odds that literally every single game I've seen of Malhotra includes multiple egregious backchecking efforts? What are the odds that this high motor defensive juggernaut would so consistently look like a lazy, ineffectual slug in the defensive zone? It's just such a wacky, improbable turn of events!
For the record, no forward has ever "always" been the first guy to backcheck on his line, even ones who actually show defensive responsibility. That was a totally bizarre thing to claim, especially about Malhotra.
He's also not even in the same stratosphere as a true, elite forechecker. For that, take a look at my post on Gleb Pugachyov, where you can watch the seventeen year old outskate, outwork, out muscle, and downright bully adult KHL defensemen on the forecheck. Pugachyov is a better athlete relative to men than Malhotra is to random CHL teenagers, and works about ten times as hard.
On this forecheck below, Malhotra has just jumped off the bench, fresh as can be, ready to home in on the tired defensemen and make some magic happen. And my goodness does he ever become at least a mild nuisance.
This is actually one of the best Malhotra forechecks that I have ever seen. I just clipped it because it was at the start of the game, and I didn't want to waste any more time finding examples of what it looks like 95% of the time Malhotra uses that "magic" stick of his on the hapless opponents. He mildly annoys them, slashes at their hands, and then they forget all about it. After this play, it takes him eight seconds to arrive in the defensive zone, which prevents him from corralling the puck that bounces over Dennis' stick in the high slot.
Tremendous work ethic. Always back checks. Leadership qualities. Make him the captain now.
I remember seeing those clips of Malhotra stripping the puck away from opponents and getting a bit of a weird feeling. Every crafty puck thief I had ever seen, Datsyuk, Marchand, Gallagher (in minor hockey), had quick hands and feet, while Malhotra has neither. Every great forechecker has tremendous speed, quickness, and power.
When watching Malhotra's games, you quickly learn that there's nothing special about his pokechecking ability. He just spams low percentage pokechecks, mostly as a cope for lacking the athleticism to get and maintain proper positioning. These mostly failed checks get edited out, and we're left with compilations that appear to exist for no reason other than to hoodwink people into thinking he's the next Datsyuk.
For the ultimate Real Malhotra experience, watch this shift where he gets the puck on the PK. Then loses control of it for no reason (amazing hands), and when the puck goes back into his end he gives a Villeneuve-esque effort, coasting and failing to pokecheck the forward, before just kinda being on the ice for the rest of the shift. I know I said I didn't want to include penalty kills, but it's truly hilarious the discrepancy between his reputational effort and the real thing. Almost every time he's in the defensive zone it looks like this.
I managed to find one breath of sanity on Malhotra's defensive non-ability somewhere on the internet. This Scouching guy has him fifteenth, still absurdly high, but his blurb matches up perfectly with what I've seen.
Scouching:
The guy praised as a complete 2 way defensive maestro is a defensive mediocrity, even at the CHL level, in addition to being a turnover machine. So much so that even the people hyping him up with heavily edited compilations of his defensive highlights can't help but show this.
THE LITTLE POWER FORWARD WHO COULDN'T
I have no idea who this "Daniel Gee Scouting" character is, but I'm pretty sure this video of his is to blame for the idea that Caleb Malhotra is some sort of semi-power forward, with amazing contact balance, who chains together plays and blah blah maestro at fending off defenders with one hand blah blah contact details.
It's nauseating the way people talk about him like he's this gargantuan, hulking monstrosity. Well guys, the combine results are in. How'd the biggest man since Shaquille O'Neill measure up?
The Hockey Writers:
It's a bird, it's a plane. No, it's a guy who's almost 6'2 and a fluffy 185lbs.
Do we have any examples of real power forwards in this draft? What's that look like? Can we get a refresher? How big are those guys?
I could have also used Hemming, or even Belchetz, off the top of my head, I just didn't have their tape in front of me. What I do have is this other video hyping up Malhotra, which shows what happens 90% of the time Malhotra uses his "contact details with power game potential" in a real game.
Sure did look easy for that random OHL guy to bump Malhotra off the puck, and then drive him ten feet further into the offensive zone and force his team to regroup. Maybe that's because Malhotra is almost 6'2 and 185lbs, not almost 6'7 and 255lbs. He does not magically possess the strength of a man seventy pounds his senior, he's just an average sized OHL player who often tries the most common move in hockey. Occasionally it works, and then this Daniel Gee guy edits all the successful attempts together into one video and mindless automatons just assume this is some sort of representative sample of not just who Malhotra is at the CHL level, but who he will become at the NHL level.
I really do think that people who watch highlight videos should be forced to watch lowlight videos, or be silo'd off to some other echo chamber to scream into the void. I don't have the time to make any of those, but it is pretty trivial to find a play where Malhotra loses a physical battle, even to a small CHL player. For example, does he looks like a power forward here? Would you say that the way he gets knocked off the puck by a small guy shows great contact details and power game potential?
BTW, that play shows something else. After Malhotra gets easily knocked off the puck by some random guy, Cooper Dennis comes in and bails him out. The puck eventually comes back to Malhotra, and shovels a tumbling, end over end pass in the general direction of Cooper Dennis, which works because he got behind the defenseman and gets in on a breakaway. We'll see this theme come up again later.
THE FACEOFF STUD... WHO LOSES THE MAJORITY OF HIS DRAWS
If there's one thing you can count on a Malhotra for, it's a faceoff win.
NHL:
I played two years of major midget, one year of Jr. B, and two years in the BCHL. I can say that I never once was on a team that practiced faceoffs. And even if I had been on one, the coaches wouldn't have known how to teach us anyway. The sorry state of coaching in Canada is a story for another time, but Caleb has benefited from not just growing up with an NHL coach for a dad, but a true faceoff specialist right there in the house. This is not even speculation, the article explicitly states this.
I say this because I know that he's going to have a great faceoff percentage, I just want people to calibrate this to -
My goodness, this boy is a prodigy. If he keeps at it one day he might even be average at the OHL level. The talent is undeniable. Look, your lying eyes might tell you that he's mediocre in the faceoff circle and defensively, but his last name is Malhotra. So come on, just get with the program already.
END PART 1
Writing this up took longer than I hoped, and I haven't even gotten to his insanely overhyped offense, which consists of standing in front of the net on a powerhouse team that constnatly drives play, shoveling the puck in the general direction of his much more talented linemates, and spamming out one on one moves succeed once in a blue moon. That part'll go much quicker.
