Quote:
Originally Posted by trackercowe
He had all of 3 goals in the last two rounds the last time they went this far (1 against Detroit). His disappearance was pretty much the reason why Malkin won the Conn Smythe.
Now you could obviously say Detroit did all they could to shut him down, but Malkin was clearly the better player during that playoff run.
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He also took key draws, played gret defensively and played against Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Ralfaski and Zetterberg so that Malkin was able to go against the lesser guys on Detroit. I remember Babcock talked about how hard it was to play against Crosby and how much focus they had to have on him. Not great offensive numbers but without him the Pens don't come close to winning those series and Malkin is likely shutout completely going against the Red Wings big guns.