The Pittsburgh Penguins and Evgeni Malkin have been synonymous for two decades. Since the organization helped smuggle the young phenom out of Russia by hiding him in a Finnish airport and apartment, locked away from family and friends for everyone’s safety because of the dangers of Russian “factors,” Malkin has helped define who and what the Penguins are.
Malkin won the Calder Trophy in 2006-07 with thrilling highlight reel goals. He was the Russian bear defensemen could not stop. Anyone who watched will not forget the special way he leaned forward on his toes with a powerful stride as he galloped through center ice, bearing down on defensemen who were helpless to stop him.
Like the days of Mario Lemieux before him, a buzz raced through the crowd when Malkin had the puck with that stride.
Malkin has 533 career goals, 1407 points and 1269 games in a Penguins sweater. He has three Stanley Cup rings, a full trophy case including a Hart and Conn Smythe trophy, legions of fans, and is a part of Penguins history, standing as a peer with Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, and Lemieux. He will be an easy choice as a first ballot Hall of Famer.
And yet it time for the Penguins to say goodbye.
In full disclosure, this writer has opined that Malkin deserved a farewell tour and proper send off with a new one-year contract. That opinion was in February, before the Penguins qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs and before Malkin slowed in the final weeks of the season.
Those factors are enough to change.
Make no mistake, Malkin does indeed deserve a raucous send off, praise and adulation. He will have his No. 71 in the rafters beside Lemieux, Jagr, and someday Crosby. If Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas or a new ownership group buckles to emotion for one more year, that is understandable.
Actually, it would be a well-deserved contract and a moment for celebration. Malkin was resurgent this season. He notched more than a point per game, scoring 19 goals with 42 assists in 56 games. And the Penguins will not find a better free agent willing to sign with them for less money.
But life isn’t fair.
There are superficial reasons to say no, which many will cite, not the least of which is that Malkin will turn 40 this summer.
First, it would be foolish to expect another point-per-game season from Malkin. He indeed slowed late in the season. His peaks were obvious because the valleys were deep. His stationary feet, unwilling to skate back to the defensive zone as the Philadelphia Flyers created shorthanded chances in the Penguins’ Round One loss, was notable.
His lack of offense in the series was like that of many others, but Malkin is one of the primary contributors. He had a pair of goals in the first three games, but nothing in the final three games, and his offensive chances were also conspicuous by their absence.
As long as Malkin remains with the team, he will be one of the primary pillars in the lineup and locker room. And no, sliding him deeper into the lineup is not a plausible option. Putting Malkin on a defensive line simply wouldn’t work.
Deeper into the situation and beyond the obvious, the Penguins reached their ceiling this season. Their Round One loss was the very best this team could achieve, and the goal of the organization is not simply to compete for a playoff spot in 2026-27, but to build a team that is a Stanley Cup contender for years to come.
Malkin would be a one-year addition with no hope of improving the team’s long-term future. And in that paradigm lies the truth of the Malkin situation–there would be no long-term benefit. Re-signing Malkin would be purely an emotional, short-term move.
The difference in signing players last summer, such as Justin Brazeau and Anthony Mantha, to short-term deals were that such players would be given a chance to be with the team long term, and be trade bait to bring back more future-facing assets.
No one expected the Penguins to leap to the top of the division and land near the top of the conference with the high hopes that such a finish brings.
But the ending showed the very reasons the Penguins are embarking upon a rebuild. The aging players were slow to adjust to things they didn’t like, such as the Flyers’ defensive shell and the Flyers drawing them into post-whistle scrums. And the Penguins ultimately lacked the ability to score a goal against the Flyers in Game 6 in part because they could not–or would not–create enough traffic in front of the net.
The veteran Penguins were willing to do the things they wanted, but not enough of the gritty, dirty things they needed. By contrast, the young Flyers were willing to sacrifice their games for the greater good and lock down in a defensive shell.
The organization is undergoing changes. The team is slowly undergoing changes. But now it’s time to speed up the team’s changes. It’s time to open new spots of leadership, more roster spots, and make fundamental changes to the team construction.
As long as Crosby, Malkin, and Kris Letang remain together, the team will center around them. As long as the Penguins remain an older team, changes will be slower and their ceiling capped.
Yes, there are short-term benefits to signing Malkin, mostly emotional, but they will last just one year. There just isn’t a long-term benefit to re-signing Malkin beyond the honoring him with a proper goodbye. And it is time the team and Dubas focus solely on the long term.
Malkin, Crosby, and Letang have had the longest run together in major professional sports history. Dubas punting at the NHL trade deadline and not parting out his team, thus allowing them to earn a berth in the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Playoffs, was their reward.
But that playoff run was quickly over. And while painful and undesirable for many, including the players, it’s also time to move forward.
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