The Russian center took part in practice Saturday, wearing a full-contact jersey and skating with Carter Rowney and Tom Kuhnhackl, while also seeing time on the Penguins' top powerplay unit.
Malkin has recorded five points in five appearances this postseason.
The United States unveiled their roster for the 2018 World Championship on Saturday.
The team - unlike in previous years - is stocked full of elite talent with the likes of Patrick Kane, Johnny Gaudreau, and Anders Lee, looking to improve on last year's fifth place finish.
Here is the full roster:
Cam Atkinson (Blue Jackets)
Will Butcher (Devils)
Blake Coleman (Devils)
Scott Darling (Hurricanes)
Alex DeBrincat (Blackhawks)
Johnny Gaudreau (Flames)
Brian Gibbons (Devils)
Quinn Hughes (University of Michigan)
Patrick Kane (Blackhawks)
Keith Kinkaid (Devils)
Chris Kreider (Rangers)
Dylan Larkin (Red Wings)
Anders Lee (Islanders)
Charlie Lindgren (Canadiens)
Alec Martinez (Kings)
Sonny Milano (Blue Jackets)
Connor Murphy (Blackhawks)
Jordan Oesterle (Blackhawks)
Neal Pionk (Rangers)
Derek Ryan (Hurricanes)
Tage Thompson (Blues)
Colin White (Senators)
The Americans kick off the tournament next Friday with an early test against the powerhouse Canadians.
As NHL teams are eliminated from Stanley Cup contention, theScore NHL freelance writer Katie Brown looks back at the highs and lows of their seasons, along with the biggest questions ahead of 2018-19. The 19th edition focuses on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Good
Freddie Andersen.Andersen was one of a few Leafs players who had a career year. He won a career-high 38 games while facing the most shots of any goalie in the NHL and boasted a .918 save percentage. The team wouldn't have gotten so far without Andersen’s efforts.
A talented core.Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Nazem Kadri, Zach Hyman, and Connor Brown were Toronto’s best players, and signal an incredibly bright future. Matthews and Kadri became the first center pair in Leafs history to score 30 goals. Matthews also became the third player in Leafs history to score 30 goals in each of his first two seasons.
A franchise record. The team's 46th win, recorded against the Florida Panthers in the last week of the season, secured a place for this year’s Leafs squad in the franchise record books - remarkable for a club that’s been around since 1917. The Leafs finished the season with 49 wins.
The Bad
Too many shots allowed. The Leafs allowed the fourth-most shots per game during the regular season (33.9). Andersen faced the most shots of any goalie in the league (2,211) and made the most saves in the NHL (2,029), a whopping 120 ahead of anyone else. Combined with Andersen playing in 66 regular-season games, this might have contributed to some fatigue in the Leafs’ first-round loss to the Boston Bruins.
Kadri’s suspension. Losing one of their most important centers and their second-highest goal-scorer for three games in a playoff series against the No. 2 team in the Eastern Conference wasn’t ideal. The Leafs still took Boston to seven games despite Kadri being suspended for checking Bruins forward Tommy Wingels in the head, but his absence made a difference.
Another first-round exit. For most of the season, this iteration of the Leafs looked destined for playoff greatness. Instead, they were eliminated by the Bruins in seven games, the second year in a row that their season ended in the first round. In 2017, Toronto was knocked out of the playoffs in six games by the Washington Capitals.
The Questions
What’s in store this summer? It’s a critical offseason for the Leafs; they've done well at drafting and developing talent over the past few years, but they need to address the shortcomings that have prevented them from taking the next step in the playoffs. One of those is a top-pairing defenseman; Jake Gardiner had his best NHL season, but he can’t do it all alone.
Who’s on their way out?Tomas Plekanec, acquired at the trade deadline, is all but guaranteed not to return. There’s been talk that free agents James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, and Leo Komarov won't be back either. This will open up more opportunities for players like Brown, Kasperi Kapanen, and Andreas Johnsson next fall. The Leafs could look a lot different, especially if their younger players take the next step.
Where does Lou land? General manager Lou Lamoriello’s three-year contract expires soon, and there's been no word on whether he will return next season. There’s a provision in his contract that would allow him to spend two years beyond his contract in an advisory role with the organization. Lamoriello’s fate might be tied to those of his assistants, Mark Hunter and Kyle Dubas. Either or both could be up for a promotion this summer.
2018 NHL Draft Lottery When: Saturday, April 28th, 7:30 p.m. ET Where: Toronto TV: Sportsnet, NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports
It's time for the draft lottery, folks, and we have all you need to know.
All the non-playoff teams and their legions of loyal fans will have their eyeballs glued to the television Saturday evening to see which organization wins the right to the No. 1 pick of the 2018 draft.
While the format remains the same, with three lottery spots up for grabs, this year offers one interesting caveat, as picks No. 15 through No. 4 will be announced prior to Game 2 between the Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks, while the top three picks won't be revealed until the second intermission.
Odds
Once again, the Buffalo Sabres have a chance at the top selection, and they'll be hoping to have some better luck than in years past.
The Flames pick, meanwhile, is owed to the Islanders due to last offseason's Travis Hamonic trade, and the Blues can give the Flyers next year's pick if this year's is in the top 10, a condition manifested in the Brayden Schenn swap.
In the last two years, there has been a significant shakeup in the top three, and the Sabres, Senators, and Coyotes are surely hoping that's not the case this time around.
For just the second time in 10 years, a defenseman is the consensus No. 1 pick. Here's some info on the projected top three prospects.
Rasmus Dahlin
The Swedish defenseman has been atop the draft rankings all year long, drawing comparisons to fellow countrymen Erik Karlsson and Nicklas Lidstrom. Not bad.
Dahlin is a generational talent and is expected to make an immediate impact in any organization lucky enough to land him.
The top forward in the class, Svechnikov is a gifted offensive talent that spent his draft year with the Barrie Colts of the OHL, recording 40 goals and 32 assists in just 44 games in his rookie year.
Zadina, a native of the Czech Republic, comes in as the third-ranked North American skater, and boosted his stock with a strong showing at the world juniors, burying seven goals in seven games.
The 18-year-old found the scoresheet consistently in the QMJHL, notching 82 points in 57 games for the Halifax Mooseheads.
Forward Brady Tkachuk, and blue liners Adam Boqvist, Quinn Hughes, and Evan Bouchard are among the other prospects projected to be drafted in the top 10. The complete list of rankings can be seen here.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Connor Hellebuyck made 47 saves and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Nashville Predators 4-1 on Friday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal between the NHL's top teams in the regular season.
Not only did the teams top the standings, this series is the first between clubs with the most combined points ever before a conference finals after Nashville (117) edged Winnipeg (114) for the Presidents' Trophy.
Both the Jets and Predators brought a Vezina Trophy finalist into this series, and the 24-year-old Hellebuyck outdueled veteran Pekka Rinne, who was pulled after the second period after giving up three goals on 16 shots. Hellebuyck, who made his NHL postseason debut in the first round where he finished off Minnesota with back-to-back shutouts, picked up in Nashville where he left off a week ago.
Hellebuyck stretched his shutout streak to 163 minutes before Nashville finally scored.
Mark Scheifele scored two goals, including an empty-netter as the Jets were outshot 48-19. Brandon Tanev and Paul Stastny also scored to help the Jets - the NHL's best home team - steal home-ice advantage.
Kevin Fiala scored for Nashville, which had won 11 of its last 14 playoff games.
The Predators had the sparkling pregame show with the retractable screen dropping from the ceiling and country star Dierks Bentley singing the U.S. anthem, and a couple catfish hit the ice before the puck drop to boot. Then they pelted Hellebuyck with 15 of the first 19 shots.
Then the Jets scored the game's first goal for a sixth straight playoff game. Tanev's wrister beat Rinne's outstretched right skate at 14:51 of the first.
Nashville finished the period with 20 shots, a franchise postseason record for a period, with Hellebuyck continuing his shutout streak started with consecutive shutouts to finish off Minnesota in the first round.
The Predators kept shooting away with Hellebuyck making every save, and the Jets proved very opportunistic. Stastny scored off a rebound of Patrik Laine's shot at 9:01 of the second on Winnipeg's ninth shot for a 2-0 lead.
Filip Forsberg, Nashville's postseason scoring leader, hit the post on the power play with 3:31 left. The Jets killed off the penalty, and Scheifele beat Rinne with a long shot with 2:09 left in the second for a 3-0 lead that silenced the sold-out crowd.
Fiala at least helped Nashville avoid being shutout with his wrister 1:23 into the third . Even pulling backup goalie Juuse Saros with more than 2 minutes left helped.
NOTES: Nashville defenseman Ryan Ellis went to the locker room after being clipped on the cheek by the skate of Jets Ben Chiarot early in the third. ... Austin Watson, who had seven points in the first round for Nashville, did not return after playing 4:09 of the first period.
UP NEXT
Game 2 is Sunday night in Nashville.
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Nashville Predators head coach Peter Laviolette turned to Juuse Saros to start the third period of Game 1 versus the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night after Pekka Rinne allowed three goals through the opening 40 minutes.
Despite the Predators controlling the shots clock, the Jets solved Rinne three times on just 16 shots in the highly anticipated series opener.
Rinne entered the contest with a .909 save percentage in six playoff starts this season, and was also pulled in Game 3 versus the Colorado Avalanche.
This year's race was widely considered one of the most open in recent memory, with several candidates worthy of recognition. However, breakout seasons from MacKinnon and Hall, as well as a bounce-back from Kopitar, ultimately won out.
MacKinnon ranked fifth in league scoring with 97 points despite playing in just 74 games, and was the main reason the Avalanche qualified for the playoffs one season after finishing dead last in the standings.
The same can be said about Hall, who led the Devils to the postseason for the first time since 2012 after notching 93 points in 76 games - a run that included a historic 26-game point streak.
Kopitar was the centerpiece of a resurgent Kings team that returned to the playoffs after a one-year absence. The Los Angeles captain finished seventh in league scoring with 92 points and topped all forwards with more than 22 minutes logged per game - a resume that also earned him recognition as a Selke Trophy finalist.
The winner will be revealed at the NHL Awards on June 20 in Las Vegas.
Kane was assessed a five-minute major and was tossed from the game after the incident.
The Golden Knights ultimately took the series-opening contest 7-0, and will look to win their sixth consecutive playoff contest Saturday night in Game 2.
