The news surrounding the Penguins injured centers wasn’t as good as it could have been yesterday. Everybody knew Evgeni Malkin was going to miss a good chunk of time, perhaps even two months. The surprise coming from Ron Hextall yesterday was it will be *at least* two months.
Penguins general manager Ron Hextall said Evgeni Malkin, who is recovering from offseason knee surgery, is not going to play for at least the first two months.
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) September 23, 2021
It seems like Malkin won’t be seeing any game action until at least after American Thanksgiving. Then we will have the time period where he has to get up to game speed as we saw last season when he was hurt. This is going to be a long process. Players like Malkin are among the select few who can thwart the aging curve better than most, but 35 is 35 and coming back from major injuries is no sure thing.
As for Sidney Crosby things aren’t quite as bad, but he is still going to miss *at least* six weeks.
Penguins general manager Ron Hextall on Sidney Crosby: "Sid has been skating pretty much every day, he's one hand with the puck. Everything’s going well. He’s skating hard and he’s right on the timeline we gave. Minimum six weeks right now is what we expect."
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) September 23, 2021
The good thing here is Crosby can, and is, skating. He can get his conditioning in order before his return unlike Malkin who has a knee injury. I’m not really worried about Crosby’s ability to bounce back and perform. In a vacuum it should be business as usual when he returns. The issue is going to be how much the team has to rely on Crosby and Carter in their mid-thirties over the course of the season. How much will they have left in the tank for meaningful games the latter portions of the season.
As for the contract situation facing the Penguins three big UFA’s? Not really much to report there.
Hextall on the status of contract extensions for players like Malkin, Letang and Rust: "We’ve been talking, but nothing to report at this time. We’ll keep chipping away."
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) September 23, 2021
I don’t see a path that makes sense for the Penguins with Bryan Rust. He has already stated he is going to do what is best for his young family. You can translate that to mean he is going to cash out. He absolutely should after seeing what Zach Hyman got. Should the Penguins be that team? I don’t think so. If the Penguins look like they can make the playoffs and both Crosby and Malkin look good I would keep Rust and let him walk. If things come off the rails by the time the trade deadline comes I would look to move him.
It appears the Penguins will be giving Radim Zohorna a real chance at earning some playing time to start the season if you go by the early line combinations in training camp
Radim Zohorna - who both Mike Sullivan and Ron Hextall pointed to as a someone who will get a real opportunity to play down the middle for PGH w/o 87 &71 to start the year - is skating between Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen for the 2nd straight day. #Pens
— Josh Getzoff (@PensJG) September 24, 2021
Thanks for reading!