Penguins mailbag: Malkin snubbed (again), bottom-six outlook, Jarry to be trusted?

Evgeni Malkin celebrates a goal against the Capitals last week at Capital One Arena in Washington — Photo via AP

It’s time for the first Penguins mailbag of the 2023-24 season.

I requested questions from the wonderful people on Twitter/X and chose a select few of them to answer right here.

Let’s jump into it, shall we?

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jensplain — Topical: Why do you think ESPN left Geno off their ranked list?

For those of you lacking the context behind this question, Evgeni Malkin did not appear on ESPN’s top-100 NHL players list for the 2023-24 season, which was released on Tuesday. He wasn’t even listed among the honorable mentions.

All I could do was chuckle when I saw The Worldwide Leader in Sports had players like Ryan O’Reilly, Nazem Kadri and Brock Boeser on the list, but not Malkin.

And then I guffawed when I saw Jacob Trouba’s name on the list. The whole thing is terrible and lacking any sort of depth.

I’m sure Malkin, who trails only David Pastrnak in production efficiency on a per-minute basis so far this season, is laughing, too.

So, to answer your question of why he was completely ignored, I’d say there are a couple of contributing factors. The obvious factor is that this was a list intended to drive clicks and ESPN+ subscriptions. Contrived controversy, perhaps. Even though they’re getting dunked on by the masses, it’d be reasonable to assume that’s exactly what they wanted.

Another factor is that there are some media members out there — especially at the national level — who just do not know what they’re talking about. At all.

But you probably already knew that last part.