Manny Malhotra Autographed Card

Manny Malhotra hasn't yet announced his retirement from hockey, but after suiting up for 23 games with the AHL's Lake Erie Monsters between December and March on a professional try-out - save for a Team Canada Spengler Cup championship during the Holidays - and not being a part of the team's Calder Cup championship, his chances look slim on suiting up on the ice. Particularly considering he was blanked at the Spengler Cup and had just 4 goals, 2 assists and 6 points in those 23 games with the Monsters, finishing with a -7 rating.

However, the Monsters' head coach Jared Bednar now holds the same position with the Colorado Avalanche, so perhaps a move behind the bench - or at least as a face-off consultant - is in the cards for Malhotra. There are even rumblings of such developments being also possible with the Vancouver Canucks, in the city where Manny and his wife Joann Nash - sister of Canadian basketball legend Steve Nash - have established themselves.

A good friend of mine received a superb birthday present yesterday: a Montréal Canadiens jersey signed by many of the players from the 2014-15 edition, including Tomas Plekanec, Andrei Markov, Carey Price, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, P.K. Subban, David Desharnais, Alex Galchenyuk, Sergei Gonchar, Lars Eller, Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau, Dustin Tokarski, Jiri Sekac, Brandon Prust, Tom Gilbert, Nathan Beaulieu, Jacob De La Rose, and - you guessed it! - Malhotra; that gave me the idea to go looking for this card of him with the Columbus Blue Jackets, which he signed in blue sharpie while with the Habs:

It's card #25 from Upper Deck's 2007-08 Series 1 set, one with an extremely stripped down design. Then again, the Jackets' dark blue (away) uniforms very pretty plain themselves...