The pick is in.With the No. 3 pick at the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo on Friday evening, the Vancouver Canucks selected Brantford Bulldogs center Caleb Malhotra.Malhotra, 18, is the son of Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra. While that introduces some potential for awkwardness, incoming Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson had consistently stated that he was unwilling to “sacrifice” on selecting the best player available on draft day simply because Caleb’s father was his first pick to be Vancouver’s head coach.“We had one conversation before I hired him,” Johnson said of discussing the draft with Manny in a pre-draft media briefing on Thursday, while discussing the unprecedented situation. “(We) agreed that if it were going to be an issue that (Manny and the team) should both go our separate ways. And we decided it wasn’t an issue.”Malhotra wasn’t on the radar as a top draft prospect entering this season, but authored a significant offensive breakout while jumping from the BCHL to the OHL and had emerged as the consensus top center in the class. Standing 6-foot-2, Malhotra is a long, athletic and physically assertive center whose offensive game is mostly built around his creativity as a playmaker. While Malhotra wasn’t a face-off ace in the OHL this past season – a reality which may take some time for fans to wrap their head around, given what we remember of how his dad played – he is a diligent, hard-working defensive presence with the tools and reach to be a disruptive two-way presence at the professional level.