Tie game. Third period. Carolina took two penalties on the same shift, and out came Manny Malhotra to kill the 5-on-3. This is what the Hurricanes had signed him to do. This is what he had fought back to do. He won a faceoff. He blocked a shot, and then another, and then …

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In a split-second, the puck rose off the stick of the Detroit Red Wings’ Henrik Zetterberg and struck Malhotra somewhere scary. In the visor? In the helmet? You could hear puck on plastic all the way up in the press box, but it happened so fast and so far away that you didn’t know which piece of plastic. After all Malhotra had been through, you held your breath.

On March 16, 2011, Malhotra was playing for the Vancouver Canucks. He was not wearing a visor. A deflected puck struck him in the left eye and altered the course of his life and career. After undergoing surgeries to repair the damage, he returned in the Stanley Cup Final that year. He played the 2011-12 season and began the 2012-13 season, and then the Canucks shut him down against his will because they feared for his safety. He didn’t return to the NHL until Nov. 1, and only after he proved he could still play in the minors.

But Thursday night, Malhotra saw the shot. He reacted in time. He turned his head and took the puck off the side of the helmet. Though a whistle blew and he went straight to the bench, he quickly nodded to tell the trainer he was OK.

“It was a nice relief, you know?” said Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller after the game, a 4-3 loss. “A little nervous. [But] it could have been anybody.”

* * * * *

On Thursday morning, Malhotra was standing in the hallway outside the dressing room when he was asked a simple question: Why is it worth the risk?

“What risk?” he asked.

That it could happen again, he was told. That he could lose the sight remaining in his eye. That his reduced vision could make him vulnerable to another injury.

“You could say that to the 700 other players in this league: ‘Why take the risk?’ ” he said. “You could blow a knee out. You could break your arm. You could have your Achilles’ tendon slashed. There’s so many things that go on with the sport that are inherent risks that come with it, but they’re so few and far between that I don’t look at it as a risk at all. I’m not taking a risk.”

At least, in Malhotra’s mind, he isn’t taking any more of a risk than anyone else.

This is a feel-good story about guts and perseverance; this is a cautionary tale about the lottery that is hockey and the chances players take. It’s simple, and it’s complicated. Sometimes a team needs to protect a player from himself; no one knows a player’s body better than himself. Doctors disagree. Who’s right?



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Answering a question about Malhotra’s vision and faceoffs, Hurricanes captain Eric Staal said: “I don’t see through his eyes, so I don’t know what he sees.”

None of us do, in any sense.

Malhotra’s left eye is sunken and discolored. “It’s not what it was, and it never will be,” he said. “But it’s really good.” He said once he got over the initial fear, it became a physical issue and then a non-issue. He put on a visor.

The Canucks were concerned. Malhotra did not play up to his usual standards in 78 games in 2011-12 and in nine games in 2012-13. More important, they felt he was putting himself in bad situations on the ice. Alain Vigneault, then the Canucks’ coach, told the New York Daily News he would show Malhotra video and ask if he saw this guy or that guy. Most of the time, Malhotra would say he saw him or felt him, but Vigneault felt there was a “gray area there.”

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