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Caleb Malhotra reflects on wild week of NHL Draft and attending first Canucks development camp
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Photo credit: © Tav Morisson-CanucksArmy
Jeff Paterson
Jul 3, 2026, 09:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 3, 2026, 00:10 EDT
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The past eight days may have been the busiest of young Caleb Malhotra’s life. Since being selected third overall by the Vancouver Canucks in last Friday’s National Hockey League draft, Malhotra has flown cross-continent, gone whitewater rafting, spent time helping out at a food bank, heard presentations from members of the Canucks front office, and spent three days on the ice at his first summer development camp.
 
He’ll be excused if he takes the weekend to catch his breath. Suffice to say, it’s been an exhilarating time for Malhotra, who turned 18 just a month ago. 
“It’s kind of gone by fast, but it’s been fun,” he told the media following Thursday’s end-of-camp scrimmages. “We went whitewater rafting which was probably the highlight of the week. It was really exciting. It’s kind of weird to say I hadn’t even been drafted a week ago. It’s been a great experience. It’s definitely been a whirlwind and I’m a bit glad to go home now and soak it all in with my family.”
The idea behind every development camp is to give prospects an idea of what life in professional hockey is like. Some are here as college players, others have come from Europe. Others still, like Malhotra, are fresh out of the junior ranks. It’s a chance to meet other prospects that will be in the same pipeline for years to come.
And it’s an opportunity to listen and learn about what it means to be a Canuck.
“Kind of the expectations they expect, not just on the ice but how they expect you to carry yourself and treat your body to be at the next level,” Malhotra explained of his biggest takeaways from the week in Abbotsford. “I learned a lot of things. I’m very grateful. I’m going to take a couple of nuggets home to help me on my journey. A lot of unique skills work. Really useful stuff in games. A lot of stuff I’m going to take back home and apply to my game and try to continue to work on.”
“Meeting a lot of the people in the organization and talking to RJ and hearing the presentations, especially the Sedins as well,” he added. “Just the amount of professionalism and hard work to get here and once you get here it’s a continuous grind. They’ve obviously been through it and they’ve played and know what it is to be professional and be the best. I’m trying to emulate them and take away as much as I can from their experiences.”
With his father Manny, the Canucks head coach, nowhere to be seen during camp – by organizational design – Caleb was free to simply be a wide-eyed prospect like the rest of the bunch. Certainly the name on the back of his jersey carries significant heft in hockey circles, but this week in the Fraser Valley, he was just one of the guys. 
“You can see he’s skilled, you can also see he wants a lot and you can see how much he tries,” Canucks development coach Mikael Samuelsson said. “The whole week he’s been asking questions and he’s been engaged. When you have a presentation, you can see whose eyes you have. He’s listening and learning. That’s the first step. First you’re quiet, then you grow, then you can start to talk like that. He’s a great student.”
And he’s a very good hockey player, too; one that wants to get better every day. Malhotra scored a couple of goals in the 3-on-3 scrimmages before a crowd in the neighbourhood of 2,000 fans at Rogers Forum. 
He certainly had the spotlight on him, but that’s something he’s become accustomed to.
“I like playing when the lights are the brightest and that’s how my dad kind of taught me growing up,” he said earlier in the week. “The big players show up in big moments, so I’ve kind of had that bit of pressure and that expectation around me my whole life. I’ve kind of gotten numb to it. It’s a privilege but I don’t really feel it too much anymore. I try to be the best player I can be and have that confidence.”
Caleb Malhotra will leave his first Canucks summer development camp with plenty of memories and many tips that should help him progress as a player next season and beyond. But before he can apply any of that advice, he’ll likely take a day or two to simply relax and be a teenager.
Given all he’s been through over the past week, he’s earned the right to a day off.
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