Injured Pens’ forward Malkin is ready

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Center Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins “probably is already ready to go” for the start of next season following recovery from torn ligaments in his right knee, coach Dan Bylsma said Monday.

Bylsma revealed some good news regarding the team’s other former scoring champion, as well.

Malkin, in his native Russia for the summer, is making significant progress in his rehabilitation from February surgery to repair a torn ACL and MCL.

The coach reiterated that Malkin was so far ahead of schedule that he perhaps could have played this spring had the Penguins advanced deeper into the playoffs. Pittsburgh lost in the first round in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The absence of Malkin and captain Sidney Crosby was clearly evident, when the Penguins blew a 3-1 series lead to Tampa Bay. Crosby missed the season’s second half while suffering from concussion symptoms.

Bylsma said Crosby has been cleared by doctors for twice-per-day, off-ice workouts, just as he normally would at this point of the offseason.

Bylsma said the team has heard from former Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar, Malkin’s countryman and former landlord and mentor when he first broke into the NHL five years ago.

“He’s never seen Geno working this hard, looking this good and this motivated at this point of the summer,” Bylsma said of Gonchar. “So, I expect a real motivated, real focused guy, and a guy whose body and his injury is ready to go. He’s really well beyond [ready], so I think he’ll be at full-go coming into training camp and really motivated.”

Malkin won the 2008-09 NHL scoring title and was the leading scorer in the playoffs that season as well, winning the Conn Smythe trophy as postseason MVP while the Penguins won the Stanley Cup.

But he dropped from 113 points that season to 77 in 67 games in 2009-10 and only 37 in 43 games — the first time he didn’t average a point per game in his career — last season. Malkin already had a minor nagging knee injury before a collision with Buffalo Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers Feb. 4 ended his season.

Less than three months after surgery, Malkin was skating and openly campaigned to return to the lineup.

“He was progressing as if that was a real possibility,” Bylsma said. “He was doing really well, strength-wise, and he was ahead of schedule.”

The schedule for concussion recovery is not as linear, as Crosby learned when he experienced a setback after being cleared to skate with his teammates for non-contract drills during the postseason.

Crosby did not play after taking blows to the head in consecutive games Jan. 1 and 5. After a European vacation with teammates in May, he was examined in Pittsburgh before retreating to his home in Nova Scotia for the summer.