The Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins are both 2-0 to start the 2025-26 NHL season, and the teams could soon be linked in a trade.
Although Evgeni Malkin has spent his entire NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, it seems as if the longtime alternate captain will not make it to the end of his 20th year with the franchise. That is because Malkin might have his sights set on the Panthers, who are without Aleksander Barkov after he tore his ACL and MCL in practice during the preseason.
“The growing narrative in the league right now is, with Barkov going down, and with Malkin having a house in Miami, that they'll probably find a way for him to be the 1C in Florida before too long. That's a place he'd probably be willing to go with Bobrovsky there,” ESPN NHL insider Greg Wyshynski said on ‘Halford & Brough in the Morning' [h/t NHL Trade Rumors' Dave Litman].
Years ago, Malkin bought a house on Fisher Island in Miami, but he has spent about nine months of the calendar in Pittsburgh, where he first arrived in 2006. Malkin, the second overall pick in the 2004 NHL entry draft, joined the Penguins two years later and immediately formed a dynamic partnership with Sidney Crosby. The pair led Pittsburgh, which had been on the verge of relocating years earlier, to the Stanley Cup in 2009, and they managed to go back-to-back in 2016 and 2017.
Since that last title, though, the Penguins have struggled not only to win championships but remain competitive at all. In 2018, the year after winning the Stanley Cup, Pittsburgh faltered in the second round against the Washington Capitals. That remains the furthest the franchise has gotten in the postseason since 2017.
After four straight years without a playoff series victory — they were eliminated in the 2020 qualifying round — the Penguins missed the postseason entirely in 2023, marking the first time that had happened since 2006, before Malkin had debuted. Pittsburgh similarly failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2024 and earlier this year.
Conversely, the Panthers have reached the Stanley Cup Finals each of the last three years, and in the last two trips, have won it.
The Penguins and Panthers are set to play in Florida on Oct. 23.
