Penguins: Breaking down Evgeni Malkin’s strengths and weaknesses

Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin is one of the NHL’s best and most unique players because of his skillset. Using video, we broke down his game.

It is no secret that Evgeni Malkin is a generational talent. Despite what the NHL wants to tell you, he is certainly a top 100 player of all time. He is likely in the top 20. Malkin has played a huge role in the Pittsburgh Penguins three championships and regular-season success over the past decade.

Despite his impressive career resume, he’s likely a bit underrated. It’s not hard to see why. Sidney Crosby rightfully gets a lot of the attention. But Malkin remains a critical and crucial cog for the Pens.

Last week, I came across these unique visuals on Twitter courtesy of @FauxCentre. This person works in the hockey analytics department for the Kingston Frontenacs of the OHL.

According to this thread, the only two centers that are better right now are Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. Pretty elite company. Malkin was having a terrific season prior to the league stoppage. He was on pace for 37 goals and 110 points if the NHL had played a normal 82 game season.

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We are all deprived of hockey and entertainment at the moment. I decided to incorporate some video in order to visualize what separates Malkin from his peers.

Strengths

Pinpoint passing

This Boston game was one of the most entertaining of the past season. Malkin caught what was just one of many bad passes from Alex Galchenyuk and appeared to have a one-on-one against Bruins defender Charlie McAvoy. That is until Bryan Rust shot out of cannon, won the race up the ice, and helped create an odd-man rush.

After crossing the blue-line, Malkin puts on the brakes and finds Rust right in stride with a spin-o-rama backhand pass. By spinning here, Malkin creates the necessary separation to complete this pass. McAvoy backs off and gives Malkin room. Malkin’s creativity, elite passing, and the ability to anticipate where Rust was going to be led to a partial breakaway and goal.

Poor Charlie McAvoy. He is a terrific young defender but Malkin just put him on the highlight reel a couple of times this past season. I was at this game and watched this play quickly unfold right in front of our section. Malkin is flying and realizing that McAvoy is too indecisive in terms of starting the Bruins breakout.

Well, Malkin decided he wanted the puck. He stripped McAvoy’s pocket and finds Bryan Rust for an easy goal. Malkin was steps ahead of everyone on the ice and caught Zdeno Chara and Jaroslav Halak leaning.

Creativity on the rush

Malkin tends to toy with the Minnesota Wild. He has a number of beautiful highlights against them throughout his career. That continued this past season. Malkin forces the Wild to turn the puck over, separates from Mikko Koivu, and catches Dominik Kahun’s pass.

By my count, there were three penalties committed by Koivu (who is no slouch defensively) while chasing Malkin. Both Jonas Brodin and Carson Soucy failed to account for Bryan Rust jumping up on this play. With two defenders on him, Malkin makes a no-look drop pass to Rust. Malkin does a great job of getting this pass past Koivu cleanly.

Malkin had to extend to catch this pass from Rust. By the time Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov gave his partner John Carlson “the point”, it was too late. Malkin was barreling in full steam ahead and had already decided that he was going to turn Carlson inside out. He regathers the biscuit and beats Braden Holtby to complete the spectacular sequence with a goal.

The complete package

This clip encapsulates all four of Malkin’s key strengths. His offensive awareness is on full display. Malkin pump fakes for a one-timer then catches the pass from Jake Guentzel. He was a step ahead of everyone before he even received the puck.

He never stops skating in this clip. He draws the attention of two Vancouver defenders as Bryan Rust slides into the slot. Malkin then fires the pass through the middle of the Canucks penalty kill and right onto Rust’s tape.

We are accustomed to having Malkin on top of the right-wing circle on the powerplay, so this is also a display of Malkin’s ability to generate offense in many different ways.

Defensive Zone Exits

In terms of controlled offensive zone entries, Malkin is a machine. As it turns out, he can exit the defensive zone efficiently as well. Malkin’s ability to exit the zone cleanly, recognize the situations, and find open ice make him a terrifying threat for opponents.

Malkin realizes that Dominik Simon won a puck battle along the wall. From there, he anticipates and catches Simon’s pass, while getting behind Seth Jones and separating himself from Blue Jackets forward Nick Foligno.

Controlled zone exits are important too, and they can lead to odd-man rushes. That is exactly what happens here. Malkin is skating through the neutral zone full steam ahead. So much so that Foligno and Zach Werenski both decided to devote their focus to Malkin and leave Jake Guentzel wide open.

Some Penguins fans have a narrative that Malkin is “lazy” and is not good defensively. I have never really bought into that narrative. When the games matter the most, Malkin elevates his game in all three zones. He covers all three zones in this goal from the 2017 Stanley Cup Final.

He begins this sequence by connecting with Phil Kessel on a stretch pass. With the period winding down, Malkin realizes he can not beat both Filip Forsberg and Yannick Weber to the net. Instead, he finds the soft spot of the ice and provides puck support which allows Kessel to make a short and quick pass. Malkin rips a one-timer right past Rinne for a 3-0 Pittsburgh lead. This was just an abysmal defensive display from the Predators, and Malkin made them pay.

Weaknesses

While the tweet names so specific weaknesses, the biggest downside to Malkin’s game is his discipline. While this season has been better, Malkin still spends too much time in the penalty box. Malkin has 960 career penalty minutes. He will eventually become the 34th player in NHL history to register 1,000 points and 1,000 penalty minutes.

Two relatively recent incidents come to mind. In February of 2019, Malkin took a couple of crosschecks and a shot to the head from Flyers forward Michael Raffl. Malkin gave in and ended up retaliating by recklessly swinging his stick at Raffl’s head. This is obviously dangerous and not needed. Malkin should have been suspended for this.

Back on December 30, 2019, the Penguins and Senators took part in a very physical game. Ottawa players were taking runs at Malkin for the majority of the night. Late in the third period, there was a scrum, and 3 or 4 Senators skates physically engaged with Malkin. J-G Pageau then gave Malkin a face wash. Malkin responded to that by swinging his stick at Pageau’s neck.

Per Natural Stat Trick, of any Penguins skater to play in a minimum of 800 minutes over the last three seasons, Malkin leads the Penguins in total penalties taken per hour with 1.53. Using the same timeframe and minute threshold, that is the 26th highest mark in the NHL.

Malkin just missed making the all-penalty team. He is sandwiched between Edmonton forward Zack Kassian and former Ducks defender Jake Dotchin. That is not the company you want to be with. I suspect that the Penguins have been trying to get Malkin to cut down on this area of his game for quite some time.

Now, Malkin does draw penalties at a high rate. Using the same criteria, Malkin ranks 45th league-wide in penalties drawn per hour with 1.21. That is in the same ballpark as Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon and Bruins forward Ondrej Kase. This does make up for some of Malkin’s penalty headaches, but he still takes too many penalties, and frankly, he always has.

Throughout his career, Malkin has also struggled in the faceoff circle. According to Puck Base, Malkin has won 44.4% of all faceoffs he has taken over the last 14 years. 2019-20 was the first season in which Malkin won the majority of his draws.

Obviously, the strengths far outweigh the negatives. Malkin is a lock for the hall-of-fame. Hopefully, he will have the opportunity for a second Conn Smythe Trophy and fourth Stanley Cup this spring. Thanks for reading!