Calling last Tuesday’s game between the Penguins and Washington Capitals from the NBC Sports studios, Pierre McGuire could feel an outburst coming.
McGuire has followed Evgeni Malkin for nearly two decades. He watched him when he was a raw teenage talent skating for Metallurg Magnitogorsk. He saw him represent Russia in two World Junior Championships and three Olympics. He was there all three times that Malkin was handed the Stanley Cup.
The longtime NHL analyst has seen Malkin take over so many games, as if the center punched in a cheat code giving him a turbo boost other players couldn’t match. And McGuire was getting that familiar feeling early in Tuesday’s 3-2 win.
Malkin scored a power play goal, steering a Kris Letang pass over the goalie’s left shoulder. Then he danced around a defenseman to create another chance. Later in the period, he stormed back into the defensive zone to break up a play.
“I broadcasted that game with Kenny Albert and I can tell you right now that’s the first thing we took out of that first period,” McGuire said a few days later. “It was like, ‘Woah, Malkin is really engaged. He wants to be a difference maker.’”
Malkin had just two shots the rest of the way and his line was on for both Capitals goals. It was one of four times in a five-game span that he was a minus-2.
Over the weekend, Malkin’s malaise stretched to 20 games. There were a few more flashes of the guy we saw a season ago, when he was one of the top 10 forwards in the NHL, but only one point. So far he has just 12 of them, one more than Teddy Blueger. And his minus-8 rating is by far the worst among Penguins.
Is it time to declare that the inevitable decline for the 34-year-old has begun?
The Post-Gazette recently spoke with three NHL analysts who have been next to Malkin on the Pittsburgh bench, sat on the other side, or stood in between. None are ready to write him off, not after 20 games in a trying pandemic season.
But they all agree that continued mediocrity would be the biggest roadblock to a deep playoff run given the Penguins’ reliance on Malkin and Sidney Crosby.
“You need to have two dominant centers,” McGuire said. “If he can’t get back to a dominant level, it becomes a very difficult task for them to win the Cup.”
Malkin skated at that level last season, bouncing back from a lackluster 2018-19 to rank sixth among NHL regulars at 1.35 points per game. His expected goals percentage (xG%) at 5-on-5 was 58.2, his second-highest mark of the last decade. He was one of the top two or three reasons the Penguins thrived without Crosby.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit last March, disrupting the hockey world.
Malkin was a statistical no-show in the playoff bubble. He then returned to Russia, where he was restricted from doing his full offseason workouts in the fall.
“Everything is closed in Russia, too,” Malkin mentioned in January. “We have ice, but we don’t have many gyms. Everything is closed. It’s not easy to find.”
Once back in Pittsburgh, he got a brief training camp with no preseason games to reach peak performance. Two months later, he still hasn’t gotten there.
For the first time in his awesome career, the Penguins are handily losing minutes when Malkin is on the ice at 5-on-5. They have earned just 40.7% of the high-danger chances and his xG% of 47.1 is his lowest mark over the past decade by nearly 5%.
At times, Malkin has looked listless. Others he has appeared to be pressing.
One play from a Jan. 26 loss in Boston comes to mind. He was clearly engaged in overtime as the Penguins hogged the puck. When the Bruins got it back, he got frustrated, left his man and tried to double-team, leading to an easy 2-on-1.
Defensively, the Penguins have fared worse with Malkin on the ice than they did a season ago, though not by that wide of a margin. He has been on the ice for only one more goal against than he had through the first 20 games of 2019-20.
One area where Malkin has not been as effective is with stick-checks, which had long been a strength of his as he used his muscle to steal pucks. He has 24 through 20 games, per Sportlogiq. Last season, Malkin had 42 at the same point.
“When he’s stopping on pucks and is engaged in battles and is physical, I think that’s when we see our best Malkin,” said former teammate Colby Armstrong, an analyst for AT&T SportsNet. “A lot of circling. He’s always been a guy that kind of does that, taking those chances. But it’s standing out right now.”
What is much more alarming is Malkin’s lack of impact in the offensive end, both at 5-on-5 and on their power play, which ranked 26th entering Monday.
Individually, he is averaging a woeful 0.9 high-danger chances per 60 minutes, according to Natural Stat Trick. His previous low was 2.9 in his second year.
Compared to last season, his ice time is similar, as is his puck possession in the offensive zone, per Sportlogiq. But he continues to linger on the perimeter and his shots are down, most notably the ones that matter. He has only 15 from the slot through 20 games and has created just 16 scoring chances off the cycle.
In related news, Malkin has four goals, only one of them scored at 5-on-5.
“When he’s playing with a fiery attitude and a little snarl to his game, I think he’s super, super effective,” said former Philadelphia Flyers forward Scott Hartnell, who is now an analyst for NHL Network. “And when he’s on the perimeter and just kind of going through the motions, no player ever looks good like that.”
He added: “You want goals, you have to go to the areas and battle. Look at Crosby. He’s around that net, banging things and whacking them out of the air.”
None of the three analysts questioned Malkin’s competitiveness. Hartnell, who often jostled with Geno over the years, says he “doesn’t get enough credit” for his fire. But they all are unsure why he hasn’t consistently brought it in 2021.
Hartnell wondered if not having spectators has affected Malkin more than others, saying, “It was always scary when he’d come into Philly and shut all of our fans up with one flick of the wrist or a big body-check, doing what he does best.”
Armstrong pointed to the COVID protocols that basically keep NHLers in isolation while away from the rink, which could cause mental struggles to snowball.
McGuire added that he has for various reasons tried to avoid being overly critical of struggling players as the NHL pushes through this strange pandemic season.
“Malkin was tremendous last year. That’s why you’ve got to be careful [writing him off],” he said. “This is a weird year and nobody really knows the conditioning level of these players or how badly COVID may be affecting them. There’s players that had COVID and you can see their energy levels aren’t nearly as high.”
Whatever the reason, something has just been off with Malkin, McGuire said.
“My whole thing is when I saw him play the other night in that first period, I was like, ‘Whoa.’ And then I go back to a [Feb. 14] game against Washington and Nick Backstrom separates him from the puck and I’m saying ‘Whoa’ again,” he said. “That’s not Evgeni Malkin. That’s just not the player I’m used to seeing.”
In the last eight games, including that one, Malkin has just one goal among his five points with a minus-7 rating. He has also piled up 16 penalty minutes.
Looking to get Malkin out of his funk, coach Mike Sullivan keeps shuffling his supporting cast. Five different wingers have started a game on his line, not including Brandon Tanev, the spark-plug Sullivan sporadically inserts on Malkin’s line. Recently, Malkin has also more frequently shared the ice with Kris Letang.
“I don’t know what else the Penguins can do,” Armstrong said. “Malkin is a guy that will put in the work. I’m sure he’s doing everything he can right now to get his game to where he wants it to be. You’ve got to just let him work through it right now. I think he’ll get there and be a big difference maker down the stretch.”
There were flickers of hope the last three games, which, coincidentally or not, came after winger Jason Zucker went down with an injury. Malkin made a nice pass to Jared McCann to set up the game-tying goal in Saturday’s 4-3 win against the New York Islanders. And his xG% at 5-on-5 was above 57.6% in all three.
Malkin, for what it is worth, said Sunday that he thinks his game is “close.”
“I’m not happy with my game right now,” he said. “But it’s coming. I feel it.”
Matt Vensel: mvensel@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mattvensel.
First Published: March 1, 2021, 6:37 p.m.
