With Phil Kessel now an Arizona Coyote, the Penguins have a potentially gaping hole on the power play.
If they’re going to maintain their top-five power play (24.6 percent success rate in 2018-19) — and cut down on their league-leading 15 short-handed goals allowed — they’ll need Evgeni Malkin to do a better job with the man advantage. Last year, Malkin registered 2.3 goals per 60 minutes of power-play ice time (down from 2.9 in 2017-18, and his lowest rate since 2014-15) and 6.7 points per 60 minutes (down from 8.0 in ’17-’18). He also committed 3.4 giveaways per 60 minutes of time on the PP, a huge uptick from 2.5 the previous season. Malkin could stand to make better decisions with the…
