If you asked the Hockey Gods to design the perfect player, they could do no worse than Evgeni Malkin, a Russian Adonis on skates. At 6 feet 3, 195 pounds, he possesses all the size and wingspan one would covet, as well as being a dynamic playmaker and one of the best finishers of his generation.
He is, after all, the NHL's 101st all-time player, right?
And yet there are times, like Saturday night, when one can at least begin to understand how Malkin may have been left off that infamous list a few years ago.
That's not to suggest Malkin isn't a great player. His resume speaks for itself. But the Penguins 5-1 loss to the Canadiens at PPG Paints Arena was fairly damning evidence, particularly when coupled with an equally damning performance in the season-opening win over the Capitals, one that was jeopardized by his third-period turnover that led to the first of T.J. Oshie's two goals in 21 seconds to tie.
In the first period of this one, his weak attempt at a Murphy Dump -- at least that's what I think it was -- turned into a chest-high pass behind Jack Johnson as the defenseman was trying to jump into the rush:
Give Johnson the official giveaway, but please do give an assist to Malkin, who set up his teammate for failure.
"It was up in the air, I tried to find it," Johnson was saying. "Some guys were whacking at it. You don't really know where it goes."
Where it went was to Tomas Tatar, who broke in a on a two-on-one, and Brendan Gallagher converted Tatar's blocked shot at 11:08. Not only did Malkin not flip the puck high, worse, he immediately went to the bench. That was the only reason that Derick Brassard -- and not Malkin -- was a minus on that goal.
Whatever, Malkin was most certainly a minus on Montreal's third goal and Paul Byron's second of the game at 3:43 of the second. Essentially, Malkin was a spectator as he failed to pick up his man, Max Domi, behind the net or Byron from in front:
And that was, depending on one's perspective, only the second or third most egregious gaffe by Malkin on that shift. Earlier, in the same area of the ice where he coughed up the puck to Oshie two nights earlier, he turned the puck over again though it did not lead to a goal.
Then at 18:43 of the second, Malkin iced the puck after his pass from just inside the Pittsburgh blue line badly missed its mark to Carl Hagelin, who was standing still near the Montreal blue line. It's a play Malkin makes 99.9 out of 100 times:
However, none of those compare to his play -- or non-play -- on Joel Armia's short-handed goal at 14:05 of the second.
Malkin whiffed on Patric Hornqvist's pass down low on the cycle deep in the Montreal zone, which set up a two-on-one break the other way for Byron and Armia, leaving Phil Kessel as the last man back. If you haven't heard, neither Kessel nor Malkin -- great as they are -- are ever going to be confused with Selke winners. But at least Kessel tried to play Byron aggressively. Kessel was able to force Bryon wide to the right before he was able to backhand a pass over to Armia:
But watch Malkin up there. He simply stopped skating. His backcheck effectively ended at the blue line -- both skates touching the ice the entire time -- as he glided the final 60 feet while Armia beat him to the net and batted the puck past Matt Murray.
Instead of 3-1 and a chance at a comeback, that goal made it 4-1 and absolutely sucked the life out of the building on a Saturday night. The NHL's No. 1 power play last season, which converted at the best rate in franchise history and scored on 2-of-4 chances against Washington, was simply outworked.
"Could have been a completely different game," Byron was saying. "But to get that one, it took a little bit of wind out of the crowd and helped us for sure."
You need your best -- and most highly-paid -- players to be, you know, your best players and hardest workers. Malkin wasn't.
That wasn't lost on Mike Sullivan. The coach didn't get his Irish up afterward during his stern and abbreviated postgame presser. He didn't even name names. He didn't have to.
"I think we are a team right now that just wants to score instead of just playing the game the right way," he said. "And that means playing on both sides of the puck. It's in the details. It's making calculated decisions. It's making good line changes. Right now, we aren't even close to where we need to be. That's what I learned from this game tonight."
If history is any indication and barring injury, Malkin will probably go on to score 90 points and contend for the Art Ross. But both he and the Penguins will have some work to do.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Canadiens, PPG Paints Arena, Oct. 6, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS