The Florida Panthers take on the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, and following this morning's skate, coach Paul Maurice had high praise for Evgeni Malkin.
The Florida Panthers are back home after a five-game road trip to take on Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Penguins are off to a strong start, surprising many who thought they would take another step back this season. They are 5-2-0 to start the 2025-26 campaign, and enter tonight's contest on a three-game win streak.
The Panthers, on the other hand, come into tonight's game a bit colder. They went 1-4-0 on their road trip, but did win the final fixture against the Boston Bruins.
The records of the two teams are the reverse of what most people expected. The Penguins are getting scoring from their star players, Crosby and Malkin, while also receiving key contributions from others such as Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha and Rickard Rakell.
Malkin leads the Penguins in scoring, and he was the focus of coach Paul Maurice's media conference this morning.
"I was amazed by how hard he worked... How hard he worked in practice, he drove hard to be a great performer," said Maurice, who coached Malkin in the KHL during the 2012-13 season. "He wanted to win, he wanted to score goals, and he wanted to drive."
The last few seasons haven't been what Malkin and the Penguins envisioned. After dominating the NHL for so long, other teams caught up, and the Penguins slowed down. That's why the 39-year-old has been mentioned in plenty of trade rumors.
No teams have formally been announced to be pursuing Malkin, and the Penguins aren't in any rush to move one of their greatest players in franchise history, but if they do, many speculate the Panthers could be a team interested in the Russian legend's services.
With Aleksander Barkov likely out for the season, the Panthers may require another center, and there aren't many players, if any, that have the experience and post-season pedigree Malkin has. In 177 playoff games, Malkin has scored 67 goals and 180 points, winning three Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe trophy in 2009.
Maurice wasn't insinuating anything in his press conference, and everything up until this point is just speculation, but the Panthers have been known to take big swings to win Stanley Cups, and if Bill Zito sees an opportunity he likes, he may go out and try to get it.
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