{"id":389066,"date":"2026-01-03T21:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/389066\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:25:10","slug":"metropolitan-notes-malkin-hurricanes-flyers-prospects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/389066\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitan Notes: Malkin, Hurricanes, Flyers Prospects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penguins center Evgeni Malkin<\/a> skated yesterday for the first time as he works his way back from an undisclosed injury sustained nearly four weeks ago, relays Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review<\/a>.\u00a0 However, head coach Dan Muse noted that the veteran is still listed as out week-to-week.\u00a0 Before getting injured, the 39-year-old was off to an impressive start to his season, picking up eight goals and 21 assists in 26 games.\u00a0 Despite missing 13 games, he still sits fourth in team scoring.\u00a0 Malkin is in the final year of his contract, one that carries a $6.1MM cap charge.\u00a0 He has spent his entire 20-year career in Pittsburgh but if he\u2019s amenable to being moved, he could be an intriguing trade candidate if the Penguins fall out of the playoff race over the next couple of months.<\/p>\n

More from the Metropolitan:<\/p>\n

With over $14MM in current cap space, per PuckPedia<\/a>, the Hurricanes are well-positioned to try to add to their roster. Justin Pelletier of the Raleigh News & Observer suggests<\/a> that Carolina\u2019s top priority should be to go after another goaltender.\u00a0 With Pyotr Kochetkov<\/a> out for the year and Frederik Andersen<\/a> struggling, preseason waiver claim Brandon Bussi<\/a> has taken over the starting role.\u00a0 While he has done rather well so far, sticking with him as their top option would be risky for a team with legitimate contention aspirations.\u00a0 Having said that, there aren\u2019t a lot of viable netminders available at the moment so if GM Eric Tulsky does want to go in that direction, he may have to be patient for a little while to see what options materialize.
\nA pair of Flyers prospects are on the move in the WHL with the trade deadline in that league looming. The Seattle Thunderbirds announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve acquired center Matthew Gard<\/a> from Red Deer while the Everett Silvertips revealed<\/a> that they\u2019ve added defenseman Luke Vlooswyk<\/a>, also from Red Deer.\u00a0\u00a0 Both players were picked in the 2025 draft, Gard in the second round and Vlooswyk in the fifth.\u00a0 Gard is having a quiet year offensively, notching just six goals and five assists in 23 games while Vlooswyk is still looking for his first goal of the campaign and collected six assists in 32 outings prior to the swap.\u00a0 Philadelphia has until June 1st, 2027, to sign both players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penguins center Evgeni Malkin skated yesterday for the first time as he works his way back from an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,1495,5,8785,2528,4,56,100,406],"class_list":["post-389066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nhl","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-evgeni-malkin","tag-hockey","tag-luke-vlooswyk","tag-matthew-gard","tag-nhl","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-whl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115833282543551965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}