Kovacevic: Sorry, Malkin's too old to pout, never mind to float all night

Man, I felt for Mike Sullivan.

His Penguins had just put forth a fourth consecutive victory, 3-2 over the Rangers, all four of those via comeback and this one on Jake Guentzel's go-ahead goal with 91 ticks on the clock. And no sooner had he sat down for his postgame Zoom interview than some big-time buzzkill reporter asked him a total bummer of a question.

Ahem!

Hey, sorry not sorry, as the cool kids say.

With due stick taps for all these rallies and all this resilience, this hockey team won't go anywhere with Evgeni Malkin floating through all 56 games of the NHL schedule.

And yeah, I said floating.

Nor will it go anywhere with Malkin pouting.

And yeah, I said pouting.

Because these are all accurate, appropriate, tiptoe-free terms for how he's conducting himself on the ice. From the moment the puck dropped in Philly right through a series of excruciating, embarrassing shifts in this one, he's been below ... not just his own bar but below that of literally everyone on the roster in expending effort.

No, I don't expect Sullivan to call that out. He'd be crazy to do that. It's always been counter-productive to freak out on Malkin. He'll only float/pout that much more. And if Sullivan did have anything to say about Malkin, his style would be to take it right to the player, not to do it through me or anyone else in this business.

That's why he instead came back gracefully, "Well, you know, Geno, my experience coaching him is that, when he scores a goal or two, his confidence goes to another level and he tends to take off. When he doesn't score, he tends to be hard on himself because ... he cares so much. He wants to help the Penguins win, and he knows that's how he can help us win. ... My conversations with Geno have been just to encourage him. To make sure he's playing the right way and that, when he has a chance to shoot the puck, to shoot the puck."

All of that's fair. And purposeful. Sullivan's job is to win hockey games, and that means managing each player as he sees fit.

Mine's to tell it like it is. And this stuff's old. It really is.

Malkin's 34 years old. This is his 15th NHL season. He'll be honored someday in the Hall of Fame. He'll be weighed among the greatest athletes of any genre from his homeland.

And he's floating.

And pouting.

When he was younger, going back to his earliest years in Pittsburgh, this stuff was almost ... cute. On those rare occasions he'd slump, he'd press to the point of getting visibly angry, but he'd also slow down. It'd look curious to some, but those closest to him would understand. Brooks Orpik used to tell me, "It's OK. We're just another game closer to getting the Russian Bear back."

Sure enough, he'd be back in a big way, before long.

This isn't then. 

As Malkin illustrated powerfully in 2019-20, when he performs with a consistent passion, he's still one of the game's giants. In fact, no player anywhere in the league -- not Connor McDavid, not Nathan MacKinnon, not his more celebrated teammate -- put up more points per game at five-on-five than Malkin's 0.83.

But to achieve that, he couldn't and didn't play the way he did in his 20s. He trained like a madman the previous summer to strengthen his legs and speed up his stride, but he also pushed through defenders, no longer as readily able to dance by them. He bull-rushed his way to the net. He placed a premium on possession by winning more faceoffs and by managing the puck more carefully. All of it contributed.

This was Malkin on New York's second goal on this night:

Watch his feet. Watch how he's almost totally upright the entire time.

That's disgraceful.

And it's that much worse when viewed from a different angle to fully absorb the round-the-world circumference of the turn he made in the corner just beforehand:

That's not acceptable. Not for Malkin. Not for Sidney Crosby. Not for Mario Lemieux. Nor is it excused because he "cares so much" or whatever other claptrap the Penguins are forced to spoon-feed him.

Not when it's been happening all over the rink through all six games. Even after he did pop a goal, a power-play blast against the Capitals earlier in the week, it had no visible impact on his overall performance. That's still his only goal, accompanied by a solitary second assist, 11 shots on goal and one penalty drawn.

And for anyone who wants to get advanced level: Malkin's 48.55 Corsi For percentage at five-on-five is third-worst among the Penguins' forwards, and the only two with lower CF% are Mark Jankowski and Brandon Tanev, though those two lead the team in defensive-zone starts.

This game was no different, arguably worse: Zero points, zero shots, a minus-2 rating, and a 3-8 night on faceoffs.

Abysmal. All of it.

I don't have sufficient words to express my respect for Malkin's career. He's a living legend in our midst, a three-time champion. I'm proud to have covered him, both here in Pittsburgh and abroad in his Olympics. I remember the civic pride I felt when seeing this local treasure's image adorning the entire side of a building in Sochi on my daily bus ride to the rinks:

But that career needs to find its next gear. The one I hoped he had found a year ago.

• To be clear on this: 4-2 is a wonderful record, but it's beyond bizarre that the Penguins' two best efforts by far were the two losses in Philadelphia.

• No one on either side was better than Bryan Rust, perhaps not coincidentally since a mid-game line shakeup -- following Evan Rodrigues' injury -- freed him from the Malkin albatross. He instantly made an impact alongside Crosby and Guentzel, right through a relentless center drive that set the screen for Guentzel's winner:

I asked Rust about that sequence, and he answered, "Sid and Tanger are about to make a play, and Guentzy's coming behind, so I'm just trying to get to the net and create some space behind me. Guentzy was able to find the soft spot and put it in."

Kris Letang's tripod skating maneuver set the stage for Guentzel to somehow get enough of a one-timer on choppy ice, but Rust makes it. If he doesn't shove through New York's backchecking Dylan Strome, it's a routine save for Igor Shesterkin.

All Rust did in this two-game set was put up 11 shots Friday, create two breakaways in this game, convert one of those, then win the game.

• That line must stay together. Crosby himself looked different once he had not one but two legit top-six wingers flanking him.

• Rodrigues was playing well enough within his own limitations, but he was never any kind of fit for a first line, and it was getting comical by the time he was hurt that a change hadn't already been made. Notably the bumping up of Kasperi Kapanen.

Kapanen did get bumped up, but it was with Malkin and still-MIA Jason Zucker. That didn't go well. Good luck to Sullivan and his staff in uncovering a solution.

• Sullivan did add in his response to me regarding Malkin, "We'll try to find the right people to surround him with to be successful," which sounded a lot like Jim Rutherford's recent remarks to Dave Molinari that Malkin's issues were mostly about his wingers.

They aren't. It's about Malkin. He isn't trying.

• Admit it: You loved seeing Brandon Tanev's bodycheck lead directly to Jared McCann's tying goal in the third period, if only because it sustained the dying art of the bodycheck for another day.

• What if Pierre-Olivier Joseph doesn't allow Mike Matheson back?

• I'd meant to predict a month ago that the Penguins would make Sam Lafferty a healthy scratch three games in a row in the season's opening couple weeks ... oh, wait, I did. Repeatedly. But I'll go once more: Until the organization cures itself of a perpetual fear of youth, not much will change.

• Alexis Lafreniere's got the natural glide and skill to grow into a star in the NHL, and the Rangers will reap the rewards. But my goodness, this kid isn't ready yet. At all. Not from the conditioning standpoint. Not from the deer-in-the-headlights standpoint, judging by how he froze in front of that gaping net in the first period that would've brought his first career goal:

• The Rangers did very little with some very good chances through both games. Strange team. Hard to gauge.

• A perfect four-game homestand with a total attendance of zero. My goodness.

With the Penguins headed to Boston and New York for the next four games, the next one at PPG Paints Arena won't be until Feb. 2 against the Devils. And here's hoping that'll be the first one to allow fans.

Not to dig deep on coronavirus here, but my local Giant Eagle currently has a maximum occupancy of 659, and my local NHL arena has a maximum occupancy of zero. There's a way to do this safely. There really is.

• I saved thoughts on Tristan Jarry for the podcast: