Pittsburgh Penguins: Dispelling the myths of Evgeni Malkin’s struggles

There’s no denying Evgeni Malkin had a disappointing season. However, the Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t do him any favors.

Since the Pittsburgh Penguins season concluded three weeks ago, both local and national media have been piling on superstar Evgeni Malkin. They’ve mentioned a disappointing season and even thrown his name into trade rumors (yet again). Today, we are going to dispute these myths.

Malkin did have his fair share of struggles this season. He shot the puck less. Malkin also missed time due to injuries. At times, he tried to do too much on his own. There is no denying any of that. But a large portion of these struggles was because of poor decisions from general manager Jim Rutherford and head coach Mike Sullivan.

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The Penguins made Malkin’s life much more difficult by trading longtime linemate Carl Hagelin and using Jack Johnson as the defenseman he was on the ice with the most. I mentioned in my article earlier this week that Malkin greatly benefitted from having Hagelin as his left winger. The numbers support that.

Beyond the top pair, the Penguins defensemen struggled to consistently exit their defensive zone with a controlled outlet pass that hit him in stride. The numbers also support that Malkin was substantially better when he was away from Johnson.

In 380 even-strength minutes together, here is how the Penguins faired with Malkin and Johnson on the ice together. This data is courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.

• Shot Attempts For Percentage: 47 %
• Shots For Percentage: 46 %
• Scoring Chances For Percentage: 51%

In 661 even-strength minutes away from Johnson, Malkin saw an improvement in each of these categories.

• Shot Attempts For Percentage: 52%
• Shots For Percentage: 51%
• Scoring Chances For Percentage: 55%

Generally speaking, the Sidney Crosby line usually shares the ice with Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang. Crosby had a 100 point season and is a Hart Trophy Finalist. Malkin usually played with arguably the worst defensemen in the league, as Johnson was a staple on the Penguins second pair. This is no coincidence.

Quality of teammate plays a significant factor here, and Malkin really got dealt the short end of the stick. Prior to the season, I felt that one of Crosby, Malkin, or Phil Kessel would see a decrease in offensive production as the result of frequently playing with Johnson and having the puck in the offensive zone at a reduced rate. If you looked at the proper data, this was not a difficult thing to predict. As it turns out, it was both Malkin and Kessel.

Malkin has been a point-per-game player in every season for the last decade. He has 1,002 career points. These kinds of players do not grow on trees. With 72 points in 68 games, this point per game trend continued in 2018-19. Malkin produced at a slightly better rate in all-situations than John Tavares last season.

Elite players (such as Malkin) tend to have the puck on their sticks quite often. They will cough it up to opponents more often. People tend to forget this. Giveaways are a very subjective stat, but all of the players on the list below are elite talents. The claim in this tweet from The Athletic’s Josh Yohe is used without any sort of context or data.

Malkin was a -25 this season. That is not a great number. But 12 of those 25 goals against occurred when the Penguins lackadaisical power-play unit was on the ice. It is vitally important to use context and understand the situations in which these on-ice results take place. This case is no different.

Reporters are mentioning how the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers are potential landing spots for a Malkin trade. That may be true. However, there are two crucial aspects that consistently go overlooked and unmentioned.

1. Malkin has a full no-movement clause. He absolutely controls his own destiny and has the ability to approve/veto any trade the Penguins would even attempt to make.
2. It has been reported that owner Mario Lemieux is adamant that both Crosby and Malkin retire in a Penguins uniform.

Furthermore, we are now in year 11 (!!!) of these blasphemous Malkin off-season trade ideas and proposals. Wash, rinse, repeat. The media just has nothing better to talk about. You can probably count on two hands the number of times Mark Madden has called for the team to trade Malkin. It is ridiculous.

For those who want to trade Malkin, consider that Malkin ranks 14th all-time in terms of points per game, is one of 88 players in NHL history to surpass 1,000 points, and is at worst the third-best player of this era. Good luck trying to replace that sort of impact via trade.

Overall, it is understandable to be frustrated with Malkin’s performance. It was not at the same level we are accustomed too. However, instead of placing all of the blame on the future hall-of-famer Jim Rutherford, Mike Sullivan, and the Penguins need to take a look in the mirror, own some of the blame here, and understand that their poor decisions played a significant role in Malkin’s struggles this past season. They provided Malkin was an insufficient supporting cast. That is not Malkin’s fault.

If the Penguins come to their senses and keep the human anchor (Johnson) away from Malkin and sign Carl Hagelin in free agency, I would reckon that the Penguins star will have a bounce-back 2019-20 campaign. Thanks for reading!