Evgeni Malkin isn't optional.
If the Penguins illustrated one point above all in falling short to the Flames, 5-4, Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, it's that they're one thing with Malkin at his peak, and that they're just another team when he's just another player.
Because when he's wasting everyone's time by committing three giveaways in the first period ...
... or passing up chance after chance after chance to shoot, or not coming back nearly deep enough on defense, then the Penguins are exactly the kind of team that would fall behind the Western Conference leader by three goals.
But when he's gripping and ripping, like he did in the third ...
... then the Penguins will dominate. Anyone.
Ask the Flames themselves.
"When those guys, Crosby and Malkin and everyone they've got, when they crank it up, they're hard to stop," Sean Monahan, Calgary's first-line center, would say afterward. "I mean, those are great players."
Both of them were that in this game. Both had three points, both registered five shots and, in Sidney Crosby's case, was dominant from the drop of the puck. But the latter's so common it's almost to be taken for granted. Malkin's contributions have fluctuated from month to month, week to week, even shift to shift.
That's got to change. And soon, given that the Penguins' 30-21-7 record just plopped them down to ninth and out of the East's final playoff spot, courtesy of the Hurricanes taking care of the Stars, 3-0, in Raleigh later in the evening.
Let me word it more clearly: Getting Malkin going must become priority No. 1.
And I don't just mean on the power play, which is how both of the above goals were scored. I'm talking five-on-five, where Malkin's still stuck on eight whole goals for the entire season. In this game, the Malkin line, with Phil Kessel and Nick Bjugstad, was a disaster at even-strength, on the ice for seven high-danger chances for Calgary to zero -- as in Z-E-R-O -- for Pittsburgh. Malkin and Kessel were nowhere to be found without possession, and Bjugstad was a headless chicken trying to compensate.
I could slog through more numbers or just replay the Zone Entry From Hell:
Part of this blame belongs to Jim Rutherford for trading Carl Hagelin, a fine five-on-five fit for Malkin -- straight-ahead speed, creating turnovers for the late-arriving Malkin -- and trust me when I tell you Hagelin's still missed more than any of them let on publicly. On the day Tanner Pearson was a healthy scratch, maybe it's an appropriate time to remind.
Part of the burden to address this is on Mike Sullivan and his staff.
While it's terrific that Crosby's got Grade A compatibility in Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, and it's probably for the best to keep both Malkin and Kessel together and happy, forcing Bjugstad onto that line made no sense. And I dare say the motive was to get Bjugstad going, now that he's gone through eight games with a single goal.
Bjugstad isn't that important.
Scoring depth through three or four lines isn't that important.
Malkin scoring is important. No, imperative.
If Malkin were the priority, he'd be out there with Kessel and Rust, a line that had been clicking before Malkin's recent injury and suspension. And Patric Hornqvist, who hasn't scored in a dozen games, would be back with Crosby, where Sullivan prefers him, anyway. And there would be two lines stacked offensively, two others to balance it out with all the requisite grit. But the undying dream of HBK II trumps all, unfortunately, and it's the second line that usually suffers for it.
Which isn't to excuse Malkin. Not in the slightest.
Because nothing has hurt him more all season long than his own maddening reluctance to shoot the puck — aside the injury and the one-game NHL suspension he just served, the main factor in his slump has been his reluctance to shoot. He's registered 133 shots in 57 games this season, a career-low average of 2.61 per game, to score his 16 goals. Last season, he averaged 3.06 shots per game and scored 42 goals. In 2011-12, when he won the Hart Trophy, he averaged 4.52 shots and scored 50.
This isn't a mystery. Not to him, either. He and I have been talking about this all winter. He never wonders, never wavers. He fully grasps that, if he shoots more, he'll score more. Just as he grasps that, if he scores more, he'll find all that moxie that's been missing.
"Yeah, I mean, like, long time I'm not score," Malkin would say after this one in his gloriously inimitable English. "Hopefully, these two goals will give me confidence. Tomorrow, I'll feel so much better. I'm glad to be back with the team. I was frustrated in the second period. I lost a couple pucks. It's fine. I'll do my best. I hope tomorrow we win."
Sunday, he means, against the Rangers.
All concerned would do well to maintain any momentum that might have been built on this front.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Derek Ryan
Flames center
He's a fourth-liner who logged only 13:26, but his three assists, plus-2 rating and solid advanced stats -- he was on the ice for seven high-danger chances for the Flames to two for the Penguins -- were evidence he rose above.
2. Mike Smith
Flames goaltender
Conceded four goals, but three were on power play, and his spectacular second-period save on Patric Hornqvist proved pivotal. More on that below in The Play.
3. Sidney Crosby
Penguins center
Yeah, I know. Lousy loss. Doesn't mean he wasn't outstanding. A goal, two assists, five shots and so much more. And unlike Malkin, he was a positive factor from front to finish with a game-high 71.88 Corsi For percentage.
Oh, about that goal ...
Reminder: Mike Smith is 6 feet 5. pic.twitter.com/LrctZd8PSo
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) February 16, 2019
THE GOOD
Hey, the power play did damage at the correct end for a change, going 3-for-4 officially but also scoring immediately after another ended. And no, even though the Flames lead the NHL with 16 short-handed goals, they didn't give up one of those.
"They were the power play that we always expect from them," Sullivan said. "They shot the puck. When they shoot the puck, we've got a chance to create something off the original shot even if it doesn't go in. If we do more of that, these guys will be back to filling the net like they're accustomed to."
The power play had been 1 for 19 in February before this occasion, which started slowly in this one with continued reluctance to shoot, until Crosby's goal at 6:52 of the second "gave everyone confidence," per Sullivan, and led to more of the same.
THE BAD
Matt Murray stopped 88 of 90 shots in two victories this week, so he might have been owed a mulligan. Or two. But there can't be any question that his performance on this day -- five goals on 24 shots -- left much to be desired, even if four of those goals skipped off teammates' sticks:
Change of direction always complicates a shot, needless to say. But that's the main reason goaltenders work to keep themselves big in the crease, rather than dropping too soon or keeping their heels back on the line, as Murray did too often on those.
Sullivan turned to Casey DeSmith after the second intermission, even though DeSmith is scheduled to start Sunday against the Rangers. He also offered this assessment of the Penguins' overall play that might or might not have been telling as related to how Murray fared: "I thought we played a pretty solid game. That's what I told our guys afterward. You can't always control if the puck goes in the net. Over the course of a season, you'll play some games where you play really well and don't get the result."
THE PLAY
A loss at this level seldom has a hard pivoting point. Not so for this one.
With 11:17 left in the second, the Penguins were down, 3-2, but pushing hard when a good shift and a better keep by Jack Johnson resulted in this Hornqvist snapper ... into Smith's glove:
"That's a big one there on Hornqvist," head coach Bill Peters said of the best of Smith's 34 saves. "There was a screen, too."
Sure was. Travis Hamonic and Sam Bennett scored in the period's final four minutes to make it 5-2, but it's easy to envision how the Penguins could have consumed the momentum without that save.
"Smitty kept us in there at some points in the game when we needed him," Monahan said. "That was huge."
THE CALL
Officiating didn’t affect the outcome, but it might have contributed to a couple of weird, unnecessary fights.
Marcus Pettersson's check on the Flames' Austin Czarnyk in the first period didn't draw a penalty, but it did draw an immediate rebuke from tough guy Bennett, who chased down Pettersson to start a one-sided fight.
"I didn't like the hit. I didn't think Czarny touched the puck," Bennett said. "Anytime I see one of my teammates getting hit like that, there has to be a response."
"I don't know if the puck was there," Calgary coach Bill Peters essentially echoed. "I didn't like the hit."
"He was right there," Pettersson said of Czarnyk. "I saw him coming. He was going for the puck. I thought it was a good chance to hit him. I think it was pretty clean. He got caught leaning a little bit. I just saw that he didn't see me, so I tried to play the body."
My three reactions to this:
1. The hit itself was clean. Czarnyk's awkward tumble into the boards was on him for being off balance in the pursuit.
2. Czarnyk doesn't touch the puck. The call is close. But the puck is right there, and everyone associated with the Flames knows that.
3. Really? Every hit now deserves a 'response?'
To end the second period, Jared McCann and the Flames' Rasmus Andersson had a weird fight of their own, first engaged in an awkwardly long pause to make sure neither got an instigator ... only to eventually have McCann get an extra two, anyway, for a crosscheck. This despite Andersson having started the spat with what McCann told me was "a sucker punch."
Whatever. Again, the referees weren't much of a factor.
THE OTHER SIDE
The Flames had lost four in a row and were facing an opponent that, back on Oct. 25 in Calgary, ravaged them, 9-1. As happened after that rout with the 4-0-1 roll that followed, they entered hoping for a similar sort of turnaround.
Motivated much?
"We were on our heels there a bit at the end, but we gutted it out," Bennett said. "That's a huge win for us after not the best showing the past couple games and that last game with these guys ... that's a huge two points for us."
I don't know about that. The Flames are 36-16-7, best in the West and second in the NHL only to the Lightning. But it's easy to see where any slump is healthy to douse.
"We had a few things that didn't go right for us lately, but I like where we've been," Peters said. "Pittsburgh came on hard, and their specialty teams were dangerous, but we hung tough there in the end."
THE DATA
• This is the latest the Penguins have been out of a playoff spot in any regular season -- minimum 58 games -- since March 7, 2009. They dropped to ninth that day. They also, of course, went on to win the Cup.
• Kessel's assist on Crosby's goal brought his 800th point, making him the 17th American to reach that milestone. The only other active one: Patrick Kane.
• This marked the fourth time this season the Penguins lost a game in which they scored four-plus goals. That happened once in the two Cup seasons under Sullivan ... combined.
• Malkin's 11 points shy of 1,000.
THE INJURIES
• Olli Maatta, defenseman, has a separated left shoulder and is expected to miss a month. He's on IR.
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, finally escapes this list. Missed 56 games to the broken leg sustained Oct. 13 in Montreal and looked razor-sharp.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's primary lines/pairings for this game:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Kessel-Malkin-Bjugstad
Blueger-McCann-Hornqvist
Aston-Reese–Cullen-Wilson
Dumoulin-Letang
Johnson-Schultz
Petterson-Ruhwedel
And for Peters' Flames:
Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm
Tkachuk-Backlund-Bennett
Mangiapane-Jankowski-Czarnik
Frolik-Ryan-Hathaway
Giordano-Brodie
Hanifin-Hamonic
Kylington-Andersson
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are right back with an even earlier rise Sunday against the Rangers: Faceoff is 12:40 p.m. to accommodate the national audience on NBC. They'll then have Monday off before playing the Devils Tuesday night in Newark.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our team page for everything, including Chris Bradford's Drive to the Net and Matt Sunday's View from Ice Level.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Flames, PPG Paints Arena, Feb. 16, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS