The Pittsburgh Penguins have been rebuilding on the fly. Will they bring Evgeni Malkin back next season?
Sportsnet 590 The FAN: The Pittsburgh Penguins surprised many this season. Their play delayed the rebuild on their way to a playoff spot. Pending UFA Evgeni Malkin wants to return, but what direction will they decide to go in?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Matt Marchese: “What do you think happens here with, with the, you know, (Kris) Letang and Evgeni Malkin. Like, Malkin I guess, is the big one, because he’s the one without the contract.
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But do you think those conversations start fairly quickly? Like, I know Kyle Dubas and Jason Spezza are going over to the (World Championship). How long of a buffer here do you think there is before we, we hear some traction on maybe a contract extension for Malkin? Or that the team has decided it’s time to go in another direction?”
Friedman: “I just think that the one thing I think is that Dubas has played this well, in the sense that he’s kept out of the public eye, right? And maybe some of that is that it’s Pittsburgh instead of Toronto. Not that, you know, there aren’t people asking every day in Pittsburgh. It’s just that the noise isn’t as great there. He’s kept out of the public eye.
So, but now you can’t avoid it, right? And I assume that whenever Dubas meets with the media in the next few days, we’ll have a clear idea of what they’re going to do here.
The thing is, like with Malkin, Malkin doesn’t always talk at the end of the season, but, and sometimes, like I find whenever he talks to the media, I find it hilarious because he’s very blunt and he’s very honest. Sometimes things contradict themselves, but he’s been consistent that he wants to be a Penguin, and he had a pretty good year this year.
You know, like I think that Dubas went into Pittsburgh saying, ‘we’re going to have to be prepared to rebuild it sometime.’ Under previous ownership, they talked about that with Hextall, but they balked when it actually had to happen. And when the moment of truth came down to it, they weren’t able to go through with it. They just, they and that’s one thing that happened to Ron Hextall. There they went from ‘we’re going to rebuild’ to ‘no, we’re not.’
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And I think, I think Dubas, if you take a look at it, they’ve been sort of rebuilding on the fly. He’s got them younger. I mean, (Ben) Kindle didn’t have a great playoff, but I think we all realize he’s going to be a good player. You know, what he went through will help him for a long time. (Yegor) Chinakhov had a really poor playoff, but I think you realize there’s a player there, and you hope that he’ll learn his lessons from what happened here, and he’ll be a good player for a long time.
You know, the Malkin one with me, I don’t have a clear answer. I really don’t, because Dubas has worked hard to keep that private. But I just remember that the last time that Pittsburgh was in a position where initially they indicated they were prepared to let Malkin walk, walk away, in the moment of truth, they couldn’t do it.
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