Opinion: Evgeni Malkin Staying With Penguins Feels Like Mats Sundin Staying With Maple Leafs

A couple of decades ago, an NHL team came to a crossroads with one of its star players.

The city was Toronto, and the player was Mats Sundin. The Maple Leafs had enjoyed a run of relative success in the Sundin Era, but toward the end of his career, it was clear to many Leafs fans the organization needed to move toward a large rebuild.

But when it came time to accept a move elsewhere to restock the roster for the long-term good of the franchise in 2008, Sundin dug in his heels and prevented the Buds from trading him.

That led to Sundin leaving the Leafs in free agency for nothing in return when they could’ve and should’ve found a way to move on from him and earnestly embarked on a roster rebuild. They only made the playoffs once between that season and 2015-16.

To this day, there are Leafs fans who resent the choice Sundin made – along with other so-called “Muskoka Four” players who all refused to be moved in trades.

This brings to mind the current predicament facing the Pittsburgh Penguins and their core of star players.

The Penguins are on course to miss the Stanley Cup playoffs this season for the third-straight year. There are reports, including from The Athletic, that GM Kyle Dubas and the Penguins have very few untouchables and could be very busy by the trade deadline.

One of those untouchables is Evgeni Malkin, who reportedly wants to finish his career in Pittsburgh, just like Sidney Crosby does. The 38-year-old Russian has a no-movement clause, so trading him sounds very unlikely.

But if the Penguins are going nowhere fast, doesn’t it make sense to trade Malkin if they could convince him to waive his clause? If you’re looking at which Penguins player can get the most in a trade besides Crosby, Malkin would be that asset.

He’s under contract for only one more year after this one, and his salary cap hit of $6.1 million makes him the easiest Penguins star player to fit under another team’s cap ceiling. He could have a much better chance at finishing up his NHL days with a Stanley Cup championship by playing somewhere other than Pittsburgh.

To wit, and Penguins fans may want to skip this paragraph: wouldn’t Malkin look excellent with the Washington Capitals? The Caps would have an amazing scoring option behind Alexander Ovechkin, and the opportunity to play alongside a fellow Russian icon would be too sweet a proposition for Malkin to pass up. Pittsburgh's only a four-hour drive from Washington, D.C., a relatively short distance in the NHL if Malkin wants to keep his roots nearby.

If Malkin was convinced to go further, the Dallas Stars are also a team built to win now. Despite the injury to center Tyler Seguin, they're accruing cap space and can eventually place him on LTIR to make plenty of room for Malkin. He wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting on offense in Dallas, and the smaller hockey market and warmer climate can be tempting.

Related: Evgeni Malkin's Stanley Cup Rings Found, Police Say

Let’s face it – even with Malkin remaining in the lineup, the Penguins are, at best, a subpar team likely destined for the mushy middle of the NHL standings. Why waste another year with Malkin and other star players when you could trade him and bring in a wealth of draft picks and prospects to help build the team around for the next decade or longer? That’s what’s best for the franchise right now, not a nostalgia crutch to lean on for the next two years. You can still acknowledge Malkin’s incredible legacy with the Pens while accepting that it’s time for both parties to split up.

In the end, if Malkin wants to stay in Pittsburgh, he'll stay. But Pittsburgh shouldn’t want a Sundin scenario to play itself out with their core players this season. Sure, you can look at trading star defensemen Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang first, but those two D-men won’t get you nearly as much in a trade as Malkin would.

The time to be sentimental with Penguins players is over, and the lessons the Leafs learned from the Sundin Saga don’t have to be learned again in Pittsburgh this year. A Malkin deal is quite a long shot, but the status quo isn’t good all around.

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