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Is Malkin Ahead Of Schedule?

April 8, 2016, 4:27 PM ET [279 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Washington Capitals in overtime last night to secure second place in the Metropolitan Division. With that victory the Penguins have earned home ice for the first round of the playoffs.

It was Sidney Crosby getting a perfect pass from Kris Letang to score the breakaway goal.




That Sid overtime goal was perfect. I love seeing him alive again. That was missing during the Johnston era. And Sid don't be afraid to use that deke in a shootout.

The Penguins next game does not mean anything. They can't move up or down in the standings. The game is against the Philadelphia Flyers and I can see situations where things could go south IE: dirty play. I would definitely not play Kris Letang on Saturday. The Penguins are COOKED without him. There is no need to risk injury in the final regular season game. He has been dinged up with a hand injury and he has also been logging an insane amount of minutes. Here is his game by game shot attempt differential this year



The reason I show this is for two reasons. One is to admire what an awesome year Letang has had. The other is to show that he's rarely been in the negative in recent weeks let alone three times in a four game span like the latest sample size suggests. They have been running the poor guy into the ground. Give him the day off Saturday so he can rest up for the final push.

If the team wanted to sit Sid out as well I would be totally fine with that too.




There may be some really good news on the Evgeni Malkin front.




However, I do expect Malkin to return, at the latest, at some point in the Penguins’ first-round series. He’s already starting to handle the puck in his own workouts. Especially if the Penguins find themselves in trouble in the first round, I’m betting that he’s back in the lineup.

The Penguins gave him a six-to-eight week window. Six weeks from that injury in Columbus will come late in the first round.

Like Jim Rutherford said the day following the injury, Malkin is a quick healer. This is true. He’s also a leader who, intelligently or not, is willing to play in some pain.

I’m not suggesting Malkin will be ready for Game 1 of the first round. That would probably be a bit optimistic. But from everything I’m hearing from many people in the organization, he’s planning to return a little earlier than expected.


This is great news. Some people are worried about Malkin hurting the "chemistry" the team has had without him in the lineup. Ignore these people they don't know what they are talking about. Evgeni Malkin is a superstar. He is chemistry. Everybody who plays with him is better off for it. There have been a ton of internet discussions about where Malkin will play at even-strength and my thought on this is the only thing that definitely has to happen is that he needs to play 20 minutes a night. There are a lot of combinations the Penguins could move forward with. Some include breaking up the HBK line and some of them don't. Whatever the Penguins go with they are better for having Malkin back in the lineup and that isn't debatable.

While it is true that the Penguins have done a really nice job without him that is because this is the closest to a championship caliber team the team has had in a while. Secondary scoring is probably such a foreign concept to some Penguins fans because they haven't seen it for a few years now. If you recall last year the team was horrendous without Malkin to the point where they had to rush him back from injury so the team could secure a playoff berth.

The team playing well without Malkin is a great sign that when they get Malkin back they will be even better.

Also from Josh Yohe's insider article was the fact that Evgeni Malkin will be staying in Pittsburgh this offseason to train.

With the exception of the 2010-11 season, when he missed half of the campaign and the playoff series against the Lightning because of a torn ACL, Malkin hasn’t been riddled with any major injuries. Rather, he always seems to have minor injuries that keep him out for a week here, a couple of weeks there, and six-to-eight weeks right now.
Malkin is deeply frustrated by this.

As a result, Malkin isn’t spending much time in Russia this summer. Rather, he intends on spending the bulk of his summer in Pittsburgh, where he can train closely with the Penguins while attempting to add to his strength.

He turns 30 in July and wants to be more durable in this 30s than he’s been in his 20s. This marks a dramatic change in Malkin’s summer plans.


Trade this guy though, right?

Matt Cullen scored another two goals last night. He has been a great signing. It shouldn't come as too big of a surprise that he has been a contributing factor in the Penguins success though. All of his underlying numbers clearly pointed to a player who was still an asset to whatever team signed him. I said so muchin a blog from last August





Not too shabby.

Pittsburgh's first round playoff matchup is looking pretty good regardless if it is the Rangers or the Islanders




The Rangers are without Ryan McDonagh to start the postseason and the Islanders just lost Anders Lee to a leg fracture. At this point I think it would be better for the Penguins to face the Islanders for the lone reason that they don't have Henrik Lundqvist.

One more meaningless game and then the fun can begin.

Thanks for reading!
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