From Pass it to Bulis, via Puck Daddy. A stats based analysis of Manny Malhotra's impact on the Canucks' lineup this season. The conclusions: Manny has taken on many of the defensive burdens for the season, enabling the Sedin line and the Kesler line to have more offensive starts, and even somewhat sheltering them in terms of QComp. I was a huge fan of Manny while he was on the team, and was very sad to see him go. It's probably true that the emergence of Logan Couture make Manny expendable, but for right now, I have to think that if we had made Patty take a pay cut, or just not resigned him, we could have afforded Manny AND a Defensive upgrade. Imagine if Manny was on the team and providing a similar spark for the Thornton and Pavelski lines? With Couture in the mix, you have four legitimate centers, to say nothing of the contributions of guys like Nichol and Mitchell. Heatley-Thornton-Setoguchi Ferriero-Pavelski-Clowe Mitchell-Couture-McGinn Nichol-Malhotra-Mayers Boyle-Murray Volchenkov-Vlasic Wallin-Demers Oh what could have been...