One of the greatest players to ever wear a Penguins sweater, one who rivaled Sidney Crosby as the NHL's best during their respective primes, Evgeni Malkin has become a divisive figure as he's set to become an unrestricted free agent July 13.
Malkin clearly wants to re-sign and continue playing with his "brothers," Crosby and Kris Letang, but isn't going to accept a low offer from Ron Hextall to do so. Hextall stated his intentions to re-sign both Malkin and Letang and have them finish their careers in Pittsburgh. With several other holes on the roster to fill, it's going to be a tricky task to bring them back without jeopardizing the team further down the lineup.
Last week, we took a look at Letang's impacts at this stage of his career and whether or not the Penguins should re-sign him. Now, we'll do the same for Malkin.
The biggest red flag when it comes to a new Malkin contract is his injury history. He has missed 77 regular-season games over the past three seasons and has suited up for 70 or more games in a season just once in the past decade. The Penguins need to be prepared for him to miss chunks of time if they are to re-sign him.
The other red flag is his age. Malkin, who turns 36 at the end of July, is past the point where many high-end players start to see pretty significant drops in performance. It's remarkable, really, that he's remained elite for so long. That said, there are 34 instances in NHL history where a player 36 or older produced at a point per game over an entire season. Only four of those seasons occurred in the past 10 years, the most recent being Alex Ovechkin (1.17 points per game) this past season. It's not to say Malkin is incapable of doing so, but Father Time is undefeated no matter how long he takes to get you.
Before diving in, here's an overall look at Malkin's impacts over the past three seasons, thanks to JFresh Hockey. (You can read an explainer on the values here.)
JFresh Hockey
Very similar to Letang, Malkin's most eye-catching drawbacks are his flawed defensive play and frequent penalties that always seem to come at inopportune times. Don't get me wrong, both are serious issues, but they don't even come close to overshadowing the immense value he brings with his individual finishing ability and toward generating quality offense. I mean, this guy was inarguably one of the league's best players as recently as the 2019-20 season. Like I just said, his career is nearing the end and it would be foolish to think another such season is on the horizon, but Malkin isn't done yet.
It would also be foolish to write him off as a net-negative asset who's actively harming the team overall.
It would be even more foolish to suggest the Penguins could easily replace him with a new slightly-used toy in free agency.
If you believe that to be the case, chew on this for a second:
• Malkin finished this past season as the Penguins' most efficient goal-scorer, finding the back of the net 1.6 times per hour.
• His 3.35 points per hour trailed only Crosby.
• Jake Guentzel was the only Penguin to score more frequently at five-on-five than Malkin's 1.08 goals per hour.
• The rate at which Malkin generated scoring chances was the highest it's been since 2017-18 and the second-highest since 2011-12.
All after returning from knee surgery halfway through the season.
Yeah, the Penguins are going to have to deal with this every now and then if they re-sign him:
But Malkin's on-ice metrics this past season were largely up to snuff as the Penguins controlled 56% of the expected goals with him out there at five-on-five while taking 54.2% of the shot attempts. So, even factoring his poor defense, the Penguins were creating plenty more chances than they were giving up. The interesting part is that the Penguins scored just 44.8% of the goals during that time. That can be attributed to the .896 save percentage Penguins goaltenders posted with him on the ice. His coverage and routes in the defensive zone leave a lot to be desired more often than not, but he is not solely responsible for sub-.900 goaltending.
Additionally, the Penguins converted on 7.63% of their five-on-five shots with Malkin on the ice despite the individual goals he scored. That'll happen when you're stapled to Kasperi Kapanen for most of the season. Malkin also spent a good chunk of time with Danton Heinen, which just so happened to coincide with the stretch of the season where Heinen couldn't find the back of the net even though the chances were there. That gets magnified in a half-season sample.
Heinen scored three goals in the playoffs. Kapanen scored none, but it wasn't due to a lack of chances that Malkin helped create:
The sentiment that Malkin isn't willing to do the difficult things hockey demands in order to win is one of many silly narratives surrounding him. Right above, that's Malkin anticipating the play, making an awkward and against the grain transition in open ice to pick off an outlet pass and spring a counterattack the other way. I'm not asking for anyone to pat him on the back for it, but he just as easily could have continued his path into the neutral zone and tracked the far-side winger from there without anybody batting an eye.
How about during the regular season, when Malkin did it all himself -- including the dirty work of getting physical and forcing turnovers -- against the two-time defending champions:
That's called imposing your will on the opposition. It doesn't happen anywhere near as frequently as it did 10 years ago, but plays like that are legitimate game-breakers. Many skaters will go their entire careers without doing something so forceful or dominant. I'd love to see a clip of Vince Trocheck -- the supposed answer if Malkin departs -- doing anything of the sort. That's not to diminish him. He's a fine player. He's not, hasn't been and never will be in the same stratosphere as Malkin.
Let's get back to Malkin's finishing ability for a moment. Notice how easily he blew that puck by Andrei Vasilevskiy? It's almost as if he has become underrated as a shooter, even though he's a threat to blast one to the twine from anywhere in the offensive zone. Over the past three seasons, Malkin has scored 53 goals on 40.2 expected goals. Finishing talent like that is not readily available, and if it is, it costs a fortune. The Penguins don't even have another skater on the roster that finds the back of the net that much more frequently than expected of them based on the quality of their chances. Not even Guentzel.
Part of what causes Malkin's poor impacts defensively is also what helps him create additional rush opportunities. He's always thinking about getting the puck and advancing it up ice. That mindset often leads him to roaming the defensive zone instead of manning an assignment or specific area of the ice. There's lots of weaving and bobbing in and out of lanes to try and intercept or deflect passes.
When that isn't effective, it can lead to shots from the slot or net-front. When it is, you get this:
A second line center pales in comparison to the importance of a No. 1 defenseman that plays in all situations, but for the same reason the Penguins should do everything they can to re-sign Letang, they should also re-sign Malkin. The grass isn't always greener. In this case, it almost certainly isn't.
Here's every single pending unrestricted free agent center that produced more than 32 points this past season:
• Patrice Bergeron
• Claude Giroux
• Ryan Strome
• Nazem Kadri
• Trocheck
I'm not kidding you, there aren't any others.
Bergeron and Giroux aren't coming to the Penguins. They just aren't. If for whatever reason they were, then a discussion could be had about moving on from Malkin.
As for the other three? Get real. Trocheck and Strome are fine players in their own right, but neither of them have ever had a season that I'd take over the most recent season Malkin played, if he had been healthy for the entirety of it. They are downgrades in nearly every sense of the imagination, excluding defense.
Kadri is in for a mega-payday after an outlier career-year on a stacked Avalanche team. He's a really good player. He's not going to come close to what he did this past season ever again. He recorded more points than each of the previous two seasons combined.
On a three-year contract, Malkin is projected to receive $6.538 million per season, according to Evolving Hockey. That figure might be a tad low due to the model factoring the player's recent number of games played as an input, but if Hextall can secure Malkin in the $6.5-$7.5 million range, he should do it. It might be pushing it to hope for the Penguins to get their money's worth in years two and three, especially if injuries persist, but I have zero doubt in my mind that Malkin will live up to that cap hit next season. And next season is all that matters.
As I wrote last week regarding Letang and the Penguins' trajectory, the Penguins aren't likely to be serious Stanley Cup contenders past next season, at least for a while. Things could change, but as far as I'm concerned, management should have tunnel vision on making this team the best it could possibly be next season and not worrying about what comes after.
Besides, one last hoorah with the core of players that have won three Stanley Cups together -- even if they don't make anything of it -- will be far more rewarding than letting them walk for new pieces that only prolong the Penguins' inevitable overhaul in the not-so-distant future.
This was the second of a two-part series analyzing the impacts of Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin and whether or not they should be re-signed.
