And all this after missing the final 13 regular-season games with an upper-body injury.
Benefiting from his offensive outburst was both Bryan Rust (five goals) and Phil Kessel (two goals), who are loving life as Malkin's linemates.
The 11 points in a series matches a career high for Malkin, although it took him six games to hit that mark in a series win over the New York Islanders in 2013.
Malkin, of course, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP in 2009 after recording 14 goals and 22 assists in 24 games, hitting point totals of nine, 10, nine, and eight in each round, respectively.
All that to say, Malkin is rolling and has emerged as the clear (but very early) MVP favorite.
PITTSBURGH - Sidney Crosby and Scott Wilson scored 51 seconds apart in the third period, helping the Pittsburgh Penguins eliminate the Columbus Blue Jackets with a 5-2 win in Game 5 of their first-round series on Thursday night.
Bryan Rust scored twice for Pittsburgh, Phil Kessel added his second of the playoffs, and Marc-Andre Fleury finished with 49 saves. The defending Stanley Cup champions will face the winner of the Toronto-Washington series in the conference semifinals starting next week.
William Karlsson and Boone Jenner scored for the Blue Jackets, but Sergei Bobrovsky stopped just 27 of 32 shots to finish a forgettable series.
Columbus trailed by three in the second period but had a potential tying goal waved off in the third for interference. Pittsburgh responded immediately. Crosby's one-timer on the power play restored a two-goal lead and Wilson's backhand less than a minute later finished off the Blue Jackets.
Columbus avoided being swept with a spirited 5-4 win on Tuesday, extending the series by playing with the kind of desperation Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan insisted his team needed if it wanted to get some rest before the second round.
It's a refrain Sullivan has preached repeatedly over the last couple weeks and once again, the Penguins didn't listen.
And once again, they were able to get away with it thanks to Fleury. He fended off 15 shots in the first period alone, several of them from point-blank range. It gave the Penguins time to find their legs, and Kessel's wrist shot from the top of the circle 9:07 into the first put Pittsburgh in front.
When Rust scored twice less than three minutes apart early in the second - both of them on backhand rebounds - the Penguins appeared to be in control.
The Blue Jackets, trying to extend a breakthrough season that included a franchise-record 108 points and the sixth-best record in the league, showed one last flash. Karlsson and Jenner beat Fleury twice in 2:54 at the game's midway point and Columbus was right back in it.
The surge ended when Fleury flopped to the ground after Alex Wennberg clipped the goaltender as he fought off a check in the crease five minutes into the third. Columbus coach John Tortorella and the rest of the Blue Jackets bench erupted in anger. Things only got worse for Columbus when Crosby powered a shot from just above the goal line by Bobrovsky. Wilson pushed the lead to three when he casually tapped a backhand by a woefully out of position Bobrovsky.
The Russian led the NHL in goals-against average (2.06) and save percentage (.931) during the regular season but couldn't keep the league's highest-scoring team in check. Pittsburgh scored at least three goals in all five games and at least four in four of them to leave the Blue Jackets still searching for their first playoff series victory.
It's become old hat in Pittsburgh, which will have some time to rest before beginning the next step in its title defense.
Putting together a pretty passing sequence on the man advantage, the Pittsburgh Penguins gained a two-goal lead Thursday over the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 5.
Captain Sidney Crosby cashed in for the Penguins, capitalizing on a low angle shot to push Pittsburgh's lead to 4-2.
Carey Price was doing Carey Price-like things early in Game 5. After a defensive breakdown led to a two-on-one, the Canadiens goaltender robbed Rangers winger Mats Zuccarello with a beautiful toe save.
In a series featuring two of the best netminders of all time, goals have come at a premium. An early marker from the Rangers would have no doubt gone a long way toward securing a Game 5 victory.
The Boston Bruins trail 3-1 in a best-of-seven series with the Ottawa Senators. Had the results been reversed, there would be a lot more buzz surrounding the play of 19-year-old defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
McAvoy made his NHL debut in Game 1, and instantly earned the trust of head coach Bruce Cassidy by logging 24:11 minutes of ice time - second only to Zdeno Chara.
McAvoy has gone on to play 27:47 in Game 2, 24:44 in Game 3, and a team-high 25:03 in Game 4. Mind you, Games 2 and 3 went to overtime, but both ended relatively quickly.
With numerous injuries on Boston's blue line - most notably to Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo, who have yet to play in the series - McAvoy's ice time has partially been out of necessity, but he's also earned every minute with exceptional play from the back end.
Playing defense is hard. Defensemen almost always take longer to develop than forwards since it's such a tough position to play at a young age. It's partially why general managers prefer to use early-round draft picks on forwards, because they will make an impact sooner.
This makes what McAvoy is doing all that more impressive. In fact, only eight teenage defensemen have suited up during the playoffs since 1998-99, when Hockey Reference began to track average time on ice.
What all those defensemen had, which McAvoy doesn't, is the experience of already playing a full NHL season. In fact, McAvoy had only played four games in the AHL prior to his NHL debut. He was thrown right into the fire, but he has answered the bell.
He only has one point and five shots on goal, but has an excellent 5v5 Corsi For percentage of 54.11, according to Corsica.Hockey. This is the 17th best CF% among defensemen in the playoffs.
Possession stats like Corsi are great, but they rarely tell the whole story.
You'd think logging over 25 minutes a game would expose a 19-year-old defenseman like McAvoy, but that hasn't been the case. He has taken exceptional care of the puck with only one giveaway in the series, according to Hockey Reference.
In addition to only giving the puck away just once in 102 minutes of ice time, he has also recorded four takeaways, tied for fifth-most in the playoffs.
Yet, what stats don't tell you is simply how composed McAvoy looks with the puck. He looks like a 10-year veteran out there. He wants the puck on his stick and wants to be the defenseman to make the first pass out of the zone.
Even if the Bruins wind up getting eliminated in Friday's Game 5, fans in Boston can look forward to having a stalwart on the back end for many years to come.
Having McAvoy paired with Chara makes it all the more fitting, as the 40-year-old is essentially passing the torch to the kid as the next great defenseman in Bruins history.