What We Learned: Evgeni Malkin and the risk of playing injured

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

Come playoff time, no one likes to miss games. Which is why you see so many guys playing a level below their normally capabilities.

Anyone who watched Saturday’s 4-2 Rangers’ win over Pittsburgh likely noted the return to the lineup of Evgeni Malkin, out since March 11 with an, ahem, “upper body” injury. And watching him play, you had to think to yourself, “Maybe he should have stayed out of the lineup.”

Medically, that seems like a correct diagnosis. He was injured early in a game on March 11, and was supposed to miss six to eight weeks. Given that Saturday was April 16, it’s fair to say that “not even five weeks” does not equal six-to-eight. You could tell he was playing ahead of schedule, because he didn’t look anything like the Malkin fans know and opponents dread.

This has nothing to do with the absurd “But the Penguins went 17-2 without him” argument, and everything to do with the fact that he flat-out looked pretty bad, save for a few flashes of brilliance, in his return. He played the second-most minutes at 5-on-5 of all Penguins but in a game in which they out-attempted New York 59-50 in all situations, they were 9-13 when Malkin was on the ice. That is to say, going 50-37 when he’s off is a dominant number (57.4 percent). The kind of number one might expect when, say, a healthy Malkin is on the ice.

But he was awful and probably not playing at anything close to 100 percent. Let’s put it this way: If you give Malkin 12 minutes of 5-on-5 TOI, you expect him to attempt at least a single shot and not get pinned in his own zone more often than not. It’s a minor miracle that he wasn’t on the ice for a goal against, because Pittsburgh conceded eight scoring chances of various quality during that time.

Now, you can argue that part of the problem was that Mike Sullivan was playing Malkin on the wing for a good chunk of the game, which is obviously not his natural position. After the game, he told reporters his preference is to play in the middle of the ice, but it was probably judicious for Sullivan to limit the exposure he was getting, especially because he was regularly taking a shift with Crosby against the Nash-Brassard-Miller line. Not exactly soft competition. Malkin did indeed end up with a marginal shooting advantage when playing alongside Crosby, but given how bad he looked you can guess he also got run over when away occasionally away from the world’s top player.

When criticizing Malkin, you have to also note that he ended up with a point in his return. Fair enough. But that was a secondary assist on a 5-on-3 goal, and more to the point Malkin still looked like he was very much out of sorts even on the man advantage. Sullivan deployed him liberally here, giving him more power play TOI than anyone on the team except workhorse Kris Letang, and nonetheless he attempted a single shot. As you can probably guess, it did not end up on net, despite the fact that he was in a high-danger area. That kind of thing happens even to players running at 100 percent but again, just looking at him, you could tell something was off.

Given the secrecy with which NHL teams conduct themselves even for out-of-conference home games in November, one can assume that we won’t know until the Penguins are eliminated (or win the Cup, I guess) what’s ailing Malkin, or how much he rushed his comeback. You give away that kind of info and you’re asking for Malkin to absorb more (and more-targeted) than just the three checks for which various Rangers were credited on Saturday — and buddy, it felt like a lot more than three.

Point being, you have to wonder if Malkin playing at, let’s say, 60 or even 75 percent (if we’re being extremely generous) is actually beneficial to the Penguins. Especially if you’re going to insist on throwing him back into the deep end — playing mostly with Crosby, and mostly against top competition — and hope for the best. No one is saying Oskar Sundqvist, who drew in for Game 1 in Malkin’s absence, is moving the needle in any appreciable way for the Penguins, but he’s making Sullivan bump everyone he’s using up a spot, instead of shuffling everyone down one to make room for Malkin. Fast being a minus-1 possession player in minutes against the third or fourth line is probably a lot less damaging than Malkin being minus-4 against the top one.

Of course, the insistence on playing top players when they’re clearly injured is not exclusive to Pittsburgh.

For example, Henrik Sedin was injured at some point in late November but played most of the season anyway, much to the detriment of both his own play and that of his team. Word out of Vancouver is that it was some sort of injury — still classified, somehow — to his torso, but which made it eminently difficult for him to do the things he’s usually extremely good at, like win draws and drive possession. One might be able to argue that Sedin is also getting quite old, given that he turned 35 in late September, but the splits between “clearly healthy” and “probably injured” here, as delineated by the turn of the calendar from November to December, is pretty obvious. His age didn’t catch up to him that quickly or immediately.

His 5-on-5 ice time dropped nearly a full minute per game, and his goal-scoring cratered from 0.5 per 60 to just 0.1. He was also passing far more often than he was shooting, as his assists per 60 actually went up from 1.2 to 1.7. (Other issues, including a broken finger late in the year and getting boarded toward the end of January, further diminished his capability, but you see the point vis a vis the core injury.)

Obviously what’s ailing Malkin isn’t what was ailing Sedin but the situations bring up the same question: Was Willie Desjardins hurting his team’s chances for success (well, relative success, anyway) by putting a demonstrably unwell Henrik Sedin on the ice for more than 13 minutes a night against top competition for more than half the schedule? I think you can reasonably argue that he did, because while the Canucks weren’t exactly awash in difference-making players, you’d have to think that a No. 2 center playing against top-line and top-pairing competition does better than 46 percent possession. You don’t want to throw Bo Horvat to those wolves, maybe probably, but if the organization’s goal was to be a 100-point team — and it was — then this was arguably a significant hindrance. (Though one must note that even post-injury, Sedin was still somehow a positive relative possession player.)

The richness of depth in Pittsburgh eclipses that of Vancouver a few times over, though. And again, this is the postseason so everyone is playing through something. But if Saturday afternoon was an indicator of the Malkin the Penguins are likely to get for the next few games or more, it really might be wiser to allow him to get a little more rest.

All games are must-win in the postseason, but this is a series the Penguins should win with or without Malkin, notwithstanding the steal-a-few-games talent of Henrik Lundqvist. And not to draw too many conclusions about a single game, but if the question is whether Malkin being used as he was on Saturday actually helps you win those must-win games, it seems the answer is a resounding “no.”

Even if he were a player with minimal impact one way or the other, that would probably be fine, all things being equal.

But Malkin was actively detrimental this weekend. Moving him into the middle for Game 3 probably hurts the rest of the team more than it helps him. Politically, it’s difficult to scratch an elite-level player like Malkin, and psychically you might even feel like that was just him shaking the rust off and he’ll be fine the rest of the way.

If you’re the Penguins, should you want to take that chance?

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: The injuries on the Ducks’ blue line are getting very, very concerning.

Arizona Coyotes: The Coyotes understandably want to move their team closer to home than Springfield, Mass., but that city isn’t too happy about the proposition.

Boston Bruins: You watch 82 Bruins games this year and your takeaway is “this team needs to get more heart.” Just amazing, really.

Buffalo Sabres: What if, and bear with me here, but what if Zemgus Girgensons is only kind of okay?

Calgary Flames: This new guy is probably already better than Joe Colborne.

Carolina Hurricanes: The Hurricanes are getting better, and will benefit significantly from neither paying nor playing Cam Ward any more. Can’t wait to see who gives him a contract this summer.

Chicago: This is a good take by Jonathan Toews. Something needs to change.

Colorado Avalanche: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Columbus Dispatch sports editor Ray Stein’s take on why Columbus is bad? “The fans of the CBJ are the enablers of this backsliding franchise.” Hmm, good opinion.

Dallas Stars: One day all these guys on the Wild will be able to tell their kids they got a close look at Jamie Benn scoring a lot.

Detroit Red Wings: Yeah this doesn’t portend good things..

Edmonton Oilers: Griffin Reinhart probably shouldn’t be the best player on your AHL team if you just gave up a first- and second-round pick for him.

Florida Panthers: Yo if you read one thing this week, make it Thomas Drance’s piece on how good Reilly Smith has been for the Cats. It’s a really good thing to read!

Los Angeles Kings: “We, uhhh, meant to do this. Because of a few years ago. That’s the ticket, yeah.”

Minnesota Wild: Yeah it was always going to be this kind of series for the Wild. They’re scarily overmatched here.

Montreal Canadiens: This is gonna make it a lot easier to trade Subban.

Nashville Predators: The mayors’ bet between Anaheim and Nashville is for a single, unspecified musical instrument? I know it’s only the first round and everything but how about, like, three guitars?

New Jersey Devils: Know who hooks and trips opponents a lot? Slow-ass teams.

New York Islanders: Devon Toews seems like a pretty good prospect for the Isles’ blue line. We know they could use the help back there.

New York Rangers: How are people still only just now realizing this?

Ottawa Senators: Sure the Senators should try to sign Steven Stamkos this summer. They should also try to trade late-round picks for Connor McDavid and PK Subban and Braden Holtby. Like, while they’re at it.

Philadelphia Flyers: This is, no joke, the worst goal I have ever seen an NHL goaltender allow. The puck doesn’t take a weird bounce on Mason, he has 100 feet to look at it, and it still beats him five-hole. Inexplicable.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Pittsburgh has an endless fascination with players from the area not-being on the Penguins. It is bizarre.

San Jose Sharks: What if anyone can be a good playoff goalie behind a team as dominant as the Kings? What if Martin Jones is better than Jonathan Quick? Well I guess we’ll never know.

St. Louis Blues: I mean they spent the whole weekend crying about it, so I would say they were at least somewhat fazed.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Erik Condra has been low-key solid for the Bolts for a while now. Good player.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Well given that they have 20 picks in the next two drafts as of this moment, yeah, it’s a pretty good bet the Leafs will be making a few trades here.

Vancouver Canucks: Really like the Troy Stecher signing for the Canucks. They could use the help.

Washington Capitals: I love that the NHL officially ruled this goal by Jason Chimera a 101-foot tip-in.

Winnipeg Jets: Just mostly.

Play of the Weekend

What a goal by Jason Chimera.

Gold Star Award

Say what you want, but you gotta credit Jason Chimera for the presence of mind to get a stick on this.

Minus of the Weekend

Tough to be Steve Mason these days, isn’t it? The boner of a lifetime.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “Flamester” has a rooting interest.

From NYI: Halak, Hamonic