Fans Won’t Like It — But It’s Time for Malkin to Go

PHOTO FROM PITTSBURGH MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

The decision the Penguins must make on Evgeni Malkin is understandably emotional, but also painfully obvious.

It’s time to move on.

Malkin won’t like it. The fans won’t like it. Malkin’s teammates won’t like it, particularly Sidney Crosby.

But with Malkin’s contract expiring, general manager Kyle Dubas has the perfect vehicle to do the right thing. The Penguins don’t have to buy Malkin out. They don’t have to try to swing a trade, assuming they can find a taker.

All they have to do is what’s best for the organization and let Malkin fade away.

To Washington, to Philadelphia, to wherever there’s an opportunity for him to keep playing. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

The concept of the “Big Three” of Malkin, Crosby and Kris Letang was fun while it lasted. Historic, in fact.

However, the Stanley Cups, Conn Smythe trophies, MVP awards and scoring titles are little more than memories at present, memories that become more distant with the passing of each season.

This past season, the regular season, woke up the echoes momentarily. The “Big Three,” in the wake of three consecutive seasons in which the Penguins had failed to qualify for the playoffs, wanted one more kick at the can.

Somehow, in the face of almost unanimous prognostications that it would never happen, the Penguins made it happen.

I’ll be cow-kicked.

PHOTO: PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

Then Philadelphia happened, a six-game ouster from the NHL’s playoff party almost before it got started.

The regular season was real, and it was inspiring at times, but the postseason was a sobering reminder of how not ready for playoff prime time the current configuration of Penguins remains.

They lost the first three games of their long-awaited shot at best-of-seven redemption in succession; they lost the first two games at home. And they ended up getting shutout twice, including in what for the Flyers was a series-clinching Game 6 that lasted almost four periods.

Imagine what might have happened had they been playing someone other than the Flyers, who, along with the Penguins, were arguably the worst team among the 16 that qualified for the NHL’s postseason?

That’s not to suggest it wasn’t worth doing, but there remains much more work to be done.

The Flyers series extended a run of postseason futility that now includes six consecutive series losses and an overall playoff record of 10-23 since the Penguins last tasted postseason success via a six-game elimination of Philly in the first round in 2018.

The Pens have changed everything at some point since then, players, coaches, executives, support staff, even owners. The constants are Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Bryan Rust.

What more does anyone need to see? It’s clearly not all on those four.

It’s equally apparent the Penguins are far beyond trying to support and complement still-kicking franchise icons in a desperate attempt to manufacture one last run. They just did that and all they ran into was a wall.

They’re an organization that needs the heart-paddles version of a jump-start. The Penguins need to start making some hard decisions, decisions they’ve kicked down the road too far, decisions much more difficult than whether to bring back Noel Acciari.

Wednesday’s NHL salary cap reveal had Malkin fans storming social media to insist there’s no reason the Pens can’t afford their hero for one more year given the abundance of cap space the Pens possess, but they’re missing the point.

The idea of salary cap flexibility isn’t to spend money for the sake of spending money, it’s to spend money on players who can make your team better. Malkin stopped being one of those a long time ago.

He’ll turn 40 on July 31st. Letang turned 39 on April 24. Start there. Start seriously committing to getting younger and faster.

Beyond that, commit to changing the culture, the personality and the dynamic — and stop living in the past.

That’ll be more complicated with Letang, who, like Malkin, is well past his prime and has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

A no-movement clause, now reportedly limited to 10 teams, and two years of remaining term at a team-unfriendly $6.1 million per season, will force Dubas to put his smartest-guy-in-the-room glasses on while trying to find a way to extract Letang from the equation.

In addition to free agents, the Pens can invest some of their abundant cap space on a Letang buyout if it comes to that.

In Malkin’s case, Dubas can literally do nothing and at least that problem will be solved.