UnderratedBrooks44
Registered User
I'm on the fence on this topic, but I do know one thing: $9.5 mil is superstar money and I think he needs to have more of an impact game by game, regardless of the stat sheet. He needed to bury one of those 1st period chances last night, that's just what players do that are within his pay grade. It doesn't have to be a goal necessarily, that's just a single game example there, but there's just too many games where he wasn't even a threat to score.
The linemates are an issue, and it can't be overstated even though it seems like an excuse because it's repeated so often. His linemates have been about 75% garbage throughout his entire career though and there's no getting around it.
All in all though I think Malkin has to gut it out a little bit and make more of a difference night in, night out. Last night notwithstanding, it really scares me how infrequently he shoots sometimes. I also don't think his shot, as good as it is, has improved much if at all since he came into the league. The other thing is that literally everyone has caught on to the one timer he likes on the PP and no one we have can dish it like Gonch anyways.
He's got to find ways to be engaged every game. I understand he's not always going to be able to make open space for himself with these linemates, but the fact of the matter is he takes up way too much cap space to be a non-factor some games and possibly not hit 90 points. You can say points don't matter, but I'm sorry they do. They matter a great deal when you make $9.5 million and you're the second biggest piece of a team's plan to win Cups.
The linemates are an issue, and it can't be overstated even though it seems like an excuse because it's repeated so often. His linemates have been about 75% garbage throughout his entire career though and there's no getting around it.
All in all though I think Malkin has to gut it out a little bit and make more of a difference night in, night out. Last night notwithstanding, it really scares me how infrequently he shoots sometimes. I also don't think his shot, as good as it is, has improved much if at all since he came into the league. The other thing is that literally everyone has caught on to the one timer he likes on the PP and no one we have can dish it like Gonch anyways.
He's got to find ways to be engaged every game. I understand he's not always going to be able to make open space for himself with these linemates, but the fact of the matter is he takes up way too much cap space to be a non-factor some games and possibly not hit 90 points. You can say points don't matter, but I'm sorry they do. They matter a great deal when you make $9.5 million and you're the second biggest piece of a team's plan to win Cups.