"Put him on waivers": some Canucks fans criticize newly acquired Brendan Gallagher

Brendan Gallagher still has no points through four games with the Canucks, and Vancouver fans are already calling for him to sit.

The 34-year-old winger heads into Thursday night's game in Carolina with a -1 rating and nothing on the scoresheet.

Some fans want him in the press box. Others are going further and floating waivers, which is a remarkable place to land in the first week of October.

That's a fast turn for a veteran Vancouver brought in this summer to plant a winning culture in the locker room. Four games in, patience is already thin.

Bringing a culture guy into a group still sorting out its identity is like buying a new couch for a house that's still being framed.

Martin St-Louis pulled him from the lineup in Montreal. Vancouver's crowd is starting to sound like it agrees with that read.

The role doesn't help. He's buried on the fourth line, logging the kind of minutes that leave almost no room to climb out of a slump.

Manny Malhotra faces a lineup call before a six-game road trip

Manny Malhotra, behind the bench since June, has bigger problems than his fourth line. Vancouver has allowed 18 goals in four games.

The goaltending is part of it. Kevin Lankinen sits at an .812 save percentage, while Leevi Merilainen has posted a .943 in his work.

Thursday's opponent arrives with some swagger. The Hurricanes have won two straight, including a 6-4 win in Montreal on Tuesday night.

Then the schedule tightens. New Jersey on Saturday, the Rangers on Sunday in a road back-to-back, followed by stops on Long Island, in Florida and in Tampa Bay.

And the depth chart is moving without him. Paul Cotter already has four goals, including one shorthanded and a game-winner.

Elias Pettersson has two power-play goals among his six points. Even 21-year-old Tom Willander has chipped in three assists from the blue line.

Among Canucks forwards who've dressed for all four games, Gallagher is the only one still waiting on his first point. So how long does a coach protect a veteran when everyone around him is producing?

Then there's the money. His cap hit sits at $6,500,000, a number that gets louder with every quiet night.

Here's the blunt part. Carrying that kind of cap hit on a fourth-line winger who isn't generating offense is a bad fit for a club leaking goals at this rate.

His contract runs out at the end of the season. The word retirement is already being whispered around him, and a slow start only turns the volume up.

Scratching him Thursday would tell the room plenty. Malhotra hasn't shown which way he's leaning, and a long road trip won't give him much time to decide.

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