Caleb Malhotra: Family, Stats and Full Profile

Caleb Malholtra, Vancouver Canucks draft pick

Caleb Malhotra is a Canadian center for Boston University and the third overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, selected by the Vancouver Canucks. Caleb Malhotra scored 84 points as an Ontario Hockey League rookie, then chose college hockey over turning professional. The club that drafted him is coached by his father.

Fast facts: Caleb Malhotra
Current team	Boston University, No. 27
Position	Center
Shoots	Left
Born	2 June 2008, Victoria, British Columbia, per the NHL. Boston University lists his hometown as Etobicoke, Ontario
Height / weight	6-foot-2, 182 lbs per the NHL. EliteProspects and Boston University list 185
Drafted	2026, first round, 3rd overall, Vancouver Canucks
Contract status	No NHL contract. Vancouver holds his rights, and PuckPedia gives a sign-by date of 1 June 2030
Previous clubs	Brantford Bulldogs, Chilliwack Chiefs, Vaughan Kings

Who drafted Caleb Malhotra?

Vancouver, and the timing is the whole story. Caleb Malhotra went third overall to the Vancouver Canucks on 26 June 2026 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, behind Gavin McKenna to Toronto and Ivar Stenberg to San Jose, and the club called him its highest-selected player from the OHL and its predecessor since 1973 in its own draft release.

25 days separated Vancouver hiring his father as head coach from Vancouver drafting his son third overall. Manny Malhotra was named the 23rd head coach in the franchise’s history on 1 June 2026, after two seasons with the club’s farm team in Abbotsford and a Calder Cup there in 2025.

General manager Ryan Johnson was asked whether that arrangement might become a problem. “We didn’t draft Manny’s kid. We drafted Caleb Malhotra, and you can tell how excited I am to have the opportunity to do that,” he said after the first round on 26 June 2026.

Yes, Nash is his uncle. Boston University’s own roster page names Steve Nash, the former NBA guard inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2018, as Caleb Malhotra’s uncle, and names his mother as Joann. The connection runs through her: Joann is Nash’s sister and captained the University of Victoria’s women’s soccer team. A second uncle, Martin Nash, played professional soccer for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

His father played 991 NHL games over 16 seasons for seven clubs, having been drafted seventh overall by the New York Rangers in 1998, which makes the household an unusually deep one in two sports at once.

“Both my uncles are unbelievable at pretty much every sport they pick up,” he said in July 2026.

What are Caleb Malhotra’s career stats?

Season	Team	League	GP	G	A	P	PIM
2024-25	Chilliwack Chiefs	BCHL	44	8	18	26	23
2025-26	Brantford Bulldogs	OHL	67	29	55	84	51
2025-26	Brantford Bulldogs	OHL playoffs	15	13	13	26	4

Completed seasons only. He is a freshman at Boston University.

The Brantford season is the one that moved him. Those 84 points were second among all Ontario Hockey League rookies in goals, in assists and in points, and his 55 assists tied for sixth in the entire league. He was named to the Canadian Hockey League’s all-rookie team and the OHL’s first all-rookie team, and he was the OHL’s rookie of the week three times in the regular season and four more times in the playoffs.

He got there by an unusual route, having been drafted eighth overall by the Kingston Frontenacs in the 2024 OHL priority selection and passing on the club to play a season in British Columbia instead. “I thought he was impressive in the BCHL. But in the OHL, he was even better,” the ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes said on the night he was drafted.

Is Caleb Malhotra playing college hockey?

Yes, at Boston University, where he wears No. 27 as a freshman. Caleb Malhotra made his college debut on 2 October 2026 in a 2-1 overtime win at Alaska Fairbanks and scored his first college goal the following night in a 4-0 win, an empty-netter set up by Jack Harvey. CanucksArmy counted roughly nineteen minutes of ice time a game over that opening weekend, second most on the team, which is more than the third line he was listed on would suggest.

The shots have come faster than the goals. He put ten of them on net in an exhibition win over Brown on 10 October 2026 without scoring, which his head coach dismissed as arithmetic. “He was getting chance after chance. It just wasn’t going in for him. It will. It will,” Jay Pandolfo said after the game on 10 October 2026.

Has Caleb Malhotra signed with the Canucks?

No, and there is no hurry. Caleb Malhotra has no NHL contract, PuckPedia lists a sign-by date of 1 June 2030, and under the collective agreement ratified in 2025 a club retains a player drafted at eighteen until the fourth 1 June after the draft. For a player still in college hockey, the club’s exclusive rights run even longer, until 30 days after the league is told he has stopped playing in the NCAA.

That status also kept him away from Vancouver. He was expected to miss the club’s training camp in September 2026 because Boston University’s term had already begun on 2 September, and the NCAA does not permit an enrolled player to miss class for professional activity.

Has Caleb Malhotra played for Canada?

Once, at a camp, and that’s it. Caleb Malhotra was on Canada’s roster for the World Junior Summer Showcase from 26 July to 1 August 2026 and played in a 5-3 loss to Sweden in Windsor on 29 July 2026, centering a second line between Philippe Veilleux and Brady Martin.

Before that, there was nothing. He was not selected for the 2024 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, the 2025 Under-18 World Championship, or the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, making him a third overall pick who reached the draft without a single Hockey Canada tournament behind him.

What has Caleb Malhotra said about playing for his father?

That he would like it. “It’d be pretty cool to play for him,” Caleb Malhotra told NHL.com on 4 June 2026, three weeks before the draft that made the question a real one, and he described the separation he keeps between the two roles: “I kind of separate dad and coach and I talk to dad, but I’ll talk to coach a lot about different things in my game.”

He has also said that he calls both parents before every game, that his father’s advice is to take it one step at a time, and that the attention is not new to him. His own words for the pressure are that he has gotten numb to it.