One of the more predictable storylines entering Game 3 of the Penguins/Rangers series is Evgeni Malkin's impact on the team because of the loss in Game 2.
Some think he ruined chemistry. Some think Mike Sullivan had him moving around too much in the lineup. Some actually believe the team is better without him.
There are however some that think Evgeni Malkin is a great player and that his deployment by Mike Sullivan in Game 2 had very little to do with the game result.
A talking point that has developed again in the wake of Malkin's return to the lineup is the suggestion that he and Sidney Crosby cannot play together. We know this to be false when looking at the evidence.
I think the biggest problem with evaluating the Crosby/Malkin even-strength partnership are the unrealistic expectations that come with it. This is a franchise that was able to boast the best duo of all-time in Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. If the expectation is that Crosby/Malkin are going to do what Lemieux/Jagr did you have set yourself up for failure. Aside from the 90's duo being the best ever the NHL as currently constructed is not a goal scoring league. Whether it is neglectful officiating or the ever improving play of goaltenders you aren't going to get gaudy offensive totals even with a super pairing. You will however drive play consistently which is about the best you can do these days.
I want to try and put things into perspective so I am going to look at a few duos from around the league and see how they stack up against the Crosby/Malkin partnership. I'll be looking at CF/60 to see how much offensive push they are able to generate as well as xGF%. Basically xGF% is a measure of the probable goal outcomes based upon shot location, type, and shooter.
Here are the duos with the amount of 5v5 ice time they have shared together. All data has been taken from
Corsia.Hockey and has a date range of 2007-today. It includes both regular season and playoffs.
Those are some of the best duos hockey has seen in the cap era. Crosby and Malkin are the best CF/60 duo at even-strength by a decent enough margin and only the Thornton/Pavelski and Datsyuk/Zetterberg are better on the xGF% front. The idea that somehow the Crosby/Malkin combination isn't anything other than excellent is laughable. If anything it has been underutilized based on the total time spent together since 2007. I've always felt that they should be used more together at even-strength towards the end of periods.
For some people these objective numbers don't mean anything and that is fine. There is also some visual evidence from Game 2 on the good things Crosby and Malkin did together. Inside Pittsburgh Sports put together a nice article on this subject. It includes multiple gifs of the zone entries that Crosby and Malkin are capable of when together.
As we have come to find out controlled zone entries and tangible offense are correlated with one another.
Lastly, here are the coach's thoughts on the matter
Specifically about Malkin and Crosby as linemates, Sullivan said: “I think we should have the ability to do both, play them together at times and play them apart at times. They seem to work extremely well on the power play together.”
I agree with him 100%. I believe they should predominately center their own lines but I also believe the coach should get creative and put them together at even-strength over the course of the game. As we saw above the whole "chemistry" argument against using them together has been pretty much debunked. As have most myths about the two star centers for Pittsburgh.
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Look for Daniel Sprong to make his way to WB/S where he should have been this entire time.
Sprong finishes his 2015-16 junior season with 16 goals and 46 points in 33 regular season games. He finished the playoffs with four goals and 15 points in 12 games.
Thanks for reading!
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