Last night was an ugly loss for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Embarking on their fifth game without the services of their injured captain Sidney Crosby, the Penguins suffered a 5-1 loss on home ice to the surging Sabres, a team who looks destined to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2011.

Few things were normal about this game, starting with the opening goals for both teams. Buffalo and Pittsburgh traded shorthanded goals in the first period, a concerning sign for each other’s power play units but an enormous boost from penalty kill units. Bryan Rust’s tying goal to the Penguins on the board helped his team even out play after Buffalo came out red shot.

But early in the second period, things really started to go downhill for the Penguins. With Evgeni Malkin tangled up with Buffalo’s captain Rasmus Dahlin near the Buffalo net, the two exchanged a few shoves before Dahlin lined Malkin up with a few cross-checks. Malkin then turned around and swung his stick high at Dahlin, connecting the toe of his stick to the neck area of Dahlin.

Malkin wasn’t done. He grabbed Dahlin and dropped the gloves, fully ready to fight the Sabre defenseman as Dahlin was grabbing at his face. The officials stepped in before Malkin could actually start throwing fists, and both were sent to the box.

Evgeni Malkin has received a match penalty for slashing on Rasmus Dahlin 😬 pic.twitter.com/iefNDyHq09

— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) March 6, 2026

The two players were each assessed a minor penalty for cross-checking, but Malkin was handed an additional five minute major and game misconduct for slashing.

This was the game-changing moment. Malkin’s five-minute major resulted in a power play goal for the Sabres 4:10 into the second period. Head coach Dan Muse, feeling as if Arturs Silovs was bumped into by Josh Doan right before the puck went in, challenged. But the snakebitten Muse lost another one, sending the Penguins into a 5-on-3 scenario and down a goal.

It was a penalty-filled period from hell for the Penguins. Buffalo would tally three goals in the second, giving them a comfortable 4-1 lead after two, something they would only build on in the third.

Malkin’s major penalty, although it led to only one goal against (and a controversial one at that was the catalyst for the Penguins’ spiral last night. Shortly after he was booted, the ice started to tilt Buffalo’s way.

But the Penguins might have bigger problems than their performance on the ice last night. Malkin could face additional discipline from the NHL’s Department of Player Safety as a result of his slash.

And for a team already missing Crosby, one thing they truly cannot afford is to lose Malkin as well.

Suspensions in the NHL are an almost impossible thing to try and figure out. But, in determining what a possible suspension could look like for Malkin as a result of this incident, I’m going to try and look at the two previous times he was suspended.

On February 13th, 2019, Malkin had a similar incident to Thursday night when the Penguins were in Philadelphia to play the Flyers.

With the puck rolling right around the Philadelphia bench, Malkin was jostling for possession with Flyers forward Michael Raffl harrassing him from behind. Raffl delivered a few cross-checks to Malkin’s back and half a punch to his head, and once the puck was free, Malkin swung his stick high and behind him in the direction of Raffl.

Malkin’s stick clipped Raffl, who fell to the ice afterwards and elicited a major reaction from the Flyers’ bench. Referees blew the play dead as the two teams gathered on the ice.

Malkin was handed a match penalty for high-sticking and kicked from the game. Given Pittsburgh’s 3-0 lead with less than five minutes to go, his ejection didn’t matter all that much (the Penguins won 4-1). But, that was not the only action the league took.

DoPS suspended Malkin for one game as a result of his stick swing. Although the contact from Malkin’s swing was minimal, the NHL maintained that the amount of contact was not taken into account when assessing a suspension.

However, knowing how the department works, Raffl getting back up with no apparent injury probably helped lower the sentence the league slapped Malkin with. His one-gamer cost him an appearance against the Edmonton Oilers, a game the Penguins won 3-1.

That was Malkin’s first suspension of his NHL career. Three years later, on April 10th, 2022, Malkin was sentenced a four-game suspension for a cross-checking incident involving him and Nashville’s Mark Borowiecki.

In that game, Borowiecki had put a hit on Malkin away from the play in the final few seconds of the second period. Malkin, who took pretty clear exception to it, turned back around and swung his stick at Borowiecki. At first, he connected just stick-on-stick, knocking Borowiecki’s twig out from his hands.

But as Borowiecki went to raise his gloves to shove Malkin, the Penguin forward went one step further and delivered a cross-check right to Borowiecki’s face. He skated off bleeding as both sides went to the locker room.

Coming out for the third, Borowiecki was given two minutes for slashing, while Malkin was given a double-minor high-sticking call. The Penguins eventually won that game in overtime, but would lose Malkin for the next four.

Those are the two suspensions we have to go off of in guessing any kind of time Malkin will miss from this incident. The scrum with Dahlin feels closer to the incident with Raffl; both players were jostling and one of them just took it too far. Dahlin was fine after the play and stayed in the game (which again, we can argue if it should matter, but precedent says it does).

Now, if Malkin is suspended for just one game, like with Raffl, perhaps the Penguins can manage that. Pittsburgh hosts Philadelphia, currently sixth in the Metropolitan Division, on Saturday in their first game after the trade deadline.

However, let’s say it’s four, like it was with Borowiecki. If that’s the case, the Penguins are in some trouble. After Philadelphia, the Penguins host Boston, then visit Carolina before a trip out to Vegas. Those are three critical games against high-powered opponents. This playoff race is tight; I know those are hard opponents, but you need some points out of that stretch, and Malkin would go a long way in that effort.

If I had to guess, I am going to say he will get three games for the swing. Yes, Dahlin didn’t appear to suffer any injury, but it was a reckless play that Malkin has done more than once over his career. Per the NHL’s own wording, he is not a “repeat offender” (as in, he has not been suspended in the last 18 months), but the NHL still does take a player’s past into account when evaluating these things.

If that guess (and it is just that, a guess) is correct, the Penguins will need to rally to try and find at least three points out of the possible six to stay afloat in this race.

It could also potentially factor into whether general manager Kyle Dubas decides to add some additional depth up front if Malkin might miss some time. There’s a lot to figure out and not a lot of time to do it, so buckle up.