The status of Evgeni Malkin’s shoulder made for an impromptu game of ‘big deal, little deal, no deal’ for the Penguins. The star forward was caught in pain after the final horn in Sunday’s game against the Canucks turning what should have been a celebratory moment of the team holding on for a win into one of concern.
For what it’s worth, the team’s immediate reaction was one of ‘little deal’ from the get go on this incident.
Then again, when the injury was first suffered in early December Malkin had no problem getting through the game against Tampa — he scored the game-winning goal late in the third period only to having something ‘weird’ and ‘annoying’ flare up in the hours afterwards. That ended up keeping him out of action for almost a month when the team initially called it a day-to-day injury.
Hopes were buoyed today by Malkin returning to the Pens’ first practice since returning from the west coast, in a normal jersey no less.
Whatever the health level, the issue has not effected Malkin’s play lately. He’s on a three-game point streak (3G+2A) and been one of the team’s top performing players on a line that’s found instant and growing chemistry and momentum with Tommy Novak and Egor Chinakhov in the 10 games since he was able to return on January 8th.
The Penguins have one-week stretch from January 29th – February 5th where they’ll play five games in eight nights prior to their Olympic break. If Malkin can make it through that gauntlet he will be getting almost three weeks of rest until the following game coming out of the break on February 26th for further rest.
Based off today’s practice, the matter might prove much ado about little, which is the best case scenario for Malkin and the team at this point for their upcoming busy week to get to the break.