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Manny Malhotra scores breakaway OT winner for Hurricanes in feel-good moment (Video)
It's feel-good story night in the NHL, apparently. Down in Florida, Taylor Fedun made his long-awaited and unlikely NHL Oilers debut even more special than it already was, scoring his first NHL goal.
Meanwhile, over in Carolina, Manny Malhotra was had a pretty special moment of his own. In his third game back in the NHL after an unexpected return to professional hockey, scored the overtime winner to snap the Hurricanes' five-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
What a moment for Manny, who, like Dante from Clerks, is not even supposed to be here. Teams mob guys after OT winners, but you got the sense everybody in that group hug knew this was more than just a big goal.
Last year, the center's career looked to be over. Citing concerns about his eye, which had been seriously injured by a deflected puck late in the 2010-11 season, the Vancouver Canucks shut him down. Malhotra sat out the rest of the year, but rather than packing it in and moving into coaching, which pretty much everybody knows is next for this guy, he decided he wasn't quite done.
And so, he worked his way back to the National, joining the Carolina Hurricanes' AHL affiliate Charlotte Checkers on a tryout, then signing a contract with the Hurricanes.
On Tuesday night, Malhotra rewarded the organization for taking a chance on him, but more than that, even for a moment, he proved the people that felt he could no longer contribute wrong.
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