Evgeni Malkin's body has absorbed a heavy toll over the hard course of 354 NHL goals, from bruises to broken bones to a completely blown-out knee. The price he's paid, the price any elite player pays to score, has been painfully real.
And then, there were these three ...
... all on the most standard of finishes, all sweat-free and, ultimately, all the Penguins needed Tuesday night to shake off the Sharks, 5-2, and bring about a community frisbee-flick of caps onto the PPG Paints Arena ice.
He barely had to budge. And not just for these three but also for the two in the previous win over the Wild, a game that saw him score twice on the power play off Minnesota skate blades.
"Last couple games, I feel like I'm so lucky," Geno would say after this one. "But that's fine. I'm helping the team to win."
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TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS[/caption]
Yeah, it's fine all right.
It also might be mandatory, if you ask me, as this season moves forward.
As has been revisited here a million times or more, this franchise has now participated in 265 games since the 2015-16 season opener Oct. 8, 2015, in Dallas -- 216 regular-season games and 49 playoff games — in the span of 844 days. And to update that math, that's now a game every 3.18 days ... including the offseasons!
That's asking a lot, as history illustrates:
The most, of course, will be asked of the best players. And that's where this gets problematic, particularly as it relates to Sidney Crosby.
Look, it's been a blessing beyond words that the captain's stayed remarkably durable in the five seasons since his concussion issues, missing only 16 regular-season games in that time, and a couple of those were even on purpose. But it's also a potential curse in that he's logged an 18-wheeler's miles in that time, including the Sochi Olympics and the World Cup, as well as investing the immeasurable energy his grinding style demands.
Please don't get me wrong. Crosby's been great in this 9-3 January the Penguins completed. So has Malkin:
But we also saw excruciating signs earlier in the season of fatigue, from Crosby and several others. And it'd be naive to think those won't recur for the many players on the roster who've been through the whole thing.
That's where Malkin enters the equation. Ideally.
He's having his most productive season since 2011-12, when he won the Hart Trophy as MVP and took his second scoring title with 50 goals and 109 points. He's currently got 26 goals, tied for fourth in the league and four off Alexander Ovechkin's lead, for a pace that'll top 40. He's currently got 55 points, 11th in the league.
And unlike Crosby, he's been lighting it up for the past two months, not one. Maybe that's a coincidence, but maybe not: Because while Crosby kept playing for the past five years, Malkin missed 84 games in that span, the equivalent of a full season. He never once played as many as 70 in a season, and he was limited to 57 and 62 in the past two leading into the recent Cups.
He should be fresher. That's my point.
And maybe he should take the starring role in a threepeat.
I asked Malkin after this game about his energy level right now, about how it might impact his performance in the coming playoffs, and I can't recommend strongly enough watching this exchange, if only for his comedy:
"When I'm healthy," the man spoke through that beaming smile, "I know I can do everything."
That, my friends, is some vital energy.
• Poor Bryan Rust. He busts out for two goals after none since late November, and he nearly had all those same caps raining down in his honor ... only to have this happen right before Malkin's empty-netter:
Yikes.
"I'd like to have that one back," he'd offer sheepishly.
"If he was playing 'posts,' that'd have been been a great shot," Ian Cole kidded from across the room. "But hey, he was nice enough to give the hat trick to Geno."
Overall, though ...
"This is big, especially because I was out for a while," Rust added, referring to missing 11 games to an upper-body injury. "I've had a stretch where maybe I wasn't playing as well as I'd liked. Hopefully, this helps with the confidence. I feel like I needed this."
• The second of his goals came off this breathtaking between-the-legs, blind pass from Tom Kuhnhackl:
That made it 4-2 at 13:58 of the third and sealed the deal.
"I was yelling so loud there," Rust recalled.
"The whole building could hear him," Kuhnhackl added.
I couldn't help but reference the Landshut Cannibals, Kuhnhackl's youth team in Germany, in asking about the pass:
And hey, who among us can resist referencing the Landshut Cannibals?
• Anyone else really like that new fourth line of Rust, Kuhnhackl and Jean-Sebastien Dea?
Well, so have they. For a long time.
That was actually their trio in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for quite a spell preceding the mass callup that season that included Rust and Kuhnhackl, and all three will attest to truly enjoying working together.
"We've always had that chemistry, and it feels like we picked that right back up," Rust said.
Two sidenotes on the subject: One, Mike Sullivan liberally pumped Crosby in with that group in the third period when it was still tight, so it's unclear how much he trusts Dea. Two, if this keeps up, Ryan Reaves might not suit up again until ... oh, Friday night against Tom Wilson and the Capitals, who am I kidding?
• Riley Sheahan shouldn't and won't be the answer to the still-missing 3C piece, but the guy brings a solid mix of defense, penalty-killing, faceoffs, forechecking and even the occasional finesse.
Hustle, too:
Always, always hustle back on the touch-up offside, kids. That’s what Sheahan did there on Rust's first goal, quickly enough so he could still spring a boomeranging Rust right back into the San Jose zone for the game's opening goal in the first period.
• One glance at that sequence above -- or all of them, better yet -- paints the scope of the Sharks' breakdowns, which badly overshadowed their 42 shots, 23 of which came in a strong second period for the visitors.
Chief among them was Martin Jones' egregious giveaway to Patric Hornqvist on Malkin's second goal.
"I didn't see him," Jones responded abruptly to a question about that.
The other regret, predictably, was giving up Malkin's first goal with 4.2 seconds left in the second period. That tied the score, 2-2.
"That hurt," the Sharks' Logan Couture said. "We'd really have liked to have the lead going into the third."
No excuses for San Jose, but missing Joe Thornton, lost to a long-term knee injury earlier in the week, didn't help. A lot more of all those chances could have been even better.
• With all due respect to Malkin, Rust and Murray, the Penguins' premier player on this night was Phil Kessel. I don't even remember how he used to not cover 200 feet. It's that distant of a memory.
• Matt Murray's at his best when he's cool, composed and covering the puck. Not necessarily in that order. He was all that and then some from the opening draw of this one, as our Chris Bradford details.
• Closing thought from this one: Cole was pretty good again. No way should Matt Hunwick be back in this top six at Cole's expense.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
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Penguins vs. Sharks, PPG Paints Arena, Jan. 30, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS[/caption]
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