It was a little of the best of Evgeni Malkin. He had two assists — the second a tremendous pass — in what amounted to a season-sustaining 4-2 win for the Penguins on Sunday night against the Philadelphia Flyers. That gave him 80 points for the season, a number he has hit six times during his Hall of Fame-caliber career.
It also was a lot of the worst of Malkin. He took not one, not two, not three, but four minor penalties. He topped off the fourth — for unsportsmanlike conduct — early in the third period with a 10-minute misconduct and then a 10-minute game misconduct for, presumably, yelling obscenities in English or Russian or maybe both at referee Chris Schlenker with increasing fury. Malkin is not the Penguins' all-time leader in penalty minutes for nothing. You can add 28 minutes to his career number.
Mike Sullivan loves the good Malkin. He has talked about him frequently, with complete justification, as being "a generational talent." Malkin showed his elite ability on his second assist, faking a shot before setting up Rickard Rakell for the goal that gave the Penguins a 2-0 lead. Malkin has just two goals in his past 18 games, but his playmaking has been brilliant, with 16 assists in those games. He has 80 points in 77 games this season, a nice 1.04 points-per-game average that is especially impressive for a player, 36, with plenty of wear and tear on his body.
But Sullivan doesn't care much for the bad Malkin. He clearly wasn't happy, again with complete justification, by what happened Sunday night. He knew Malkin put the Penguins in jeopardy by being ejected with 18:11 to go. The team, which is in a fierce fight for a playoff spot, had to play almost all of the final period without one of its superstars in what was awfully close to a must-win game.
"He's obviously an emotional guy," Sullivan said. "His emotions got the best of him in that circumstance, and Geno and I will have a conversation about that. He's got to do a better job controlling his emotions because we need him."
Sullivan explained what led to Malkin's outburst.
"He got high-sticked and [the referees] didn't see it. He got a stick in the face and they didn't see it. My sense is that he was upset because he got three minor penalties, one of which was a high stick, and then when he gets high-sticked, they didn't see it. ...
"You guys saw what happened. He had an exchange with the referees. The referees didn't like it."
Malkin's four minor penalties were the most in a game by a Penguins player since — no surprise here — he took four in a game at Nashville in December 2019.
Malkin was fortunate his teammates bailed him out. The Penguins' penalty kill had been under fire for allowing a goal in seven of the previous eight games, nine total goals out of 24 chances for a woeful 62.5% kill rate. But it stopped the Flyers on all five of their power plays, allowing a total of just five shots. The Flyers came in with the second-worst power play in the NHL.
The Penguins were fortunate the Flyers were the opponent. They easily could have lost to a better team because of the bad situations Malkin put them in. As it was, with five games remaining, they jumped back over the Florida Panthers by a point for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot. They also moved within one point of the New York Islanders for the seventh spot. They have a game in hand on the Islanders, who lost 2-1 to Carolina on Sunday night.
"The stakes are high right now," Sullivan said.
That's obvious.
So is Sullivan's money quote from the night:
"[Malkin's] got to do a better job controlling his emotions because we need him."
