Evgeni Malkin is staying in Pittsburgh. The Penguins re-signed the veteran forward to a one-year contract extension on the day the deal was announced, keeping him under contract through the 2026-27 campaign at an average annual value of $5.5 million.
The new agreement gives Pittsburgh another year with one of the defining players in franchise history, a center who has spent all 20 of his NHL seasons with the Penguins. Malkin has 1,269 games, 533 goals, 874 assists and 1,407 points in black and gold, along with 187 power-play goals, 89 game-winning goals and 14 overtime goals. He has also been selected to seven NHL All-Star Games and won three Stanley Cup championships with Pittsburgh in 2009, 2016 and 2017.
That record places Malkin among the most accomplished players in team history and among the most decorated in league history. Drafted by Pittsburgh second overall in the 2004 NHL Draft, he won the Calder Trophy in 2007, the Art Ross Trophy in 2009 and 2012, the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2009, the Hart Trophy in 2012 and the Ted Lindsay Award in 2012. In 2024, he became the 48th player in NHL history to reach 500 goals.
His playoff resume is just as deep. Malkin posted 36 points in the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when he won the Conn Smythe Trophy, and added 28 points in 25 games during Pittsburgh’s 2017 championship run. He ranks 12th on the NHL’s all-time postseason scoring list with 183 points in 183 playoff games, a number that underscores how often he has delivered when the games matter most.
The extension also extends a career that has been unusually steady for a player with Malkin’s résumé. He has averaged a point per game or better in 16 of his 20 seasons and has crossed the 100-point mark three times, in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Teammates voted him Penguins Team MVP on five separate occasions, a sign of how central he has remained inside the room as well as on the ice.
The timing matters because the contract carries him through the 2026-27 campaign, giving Pittsburgh another season to keep a core era intact. It also comes after years in which the club has relied on Malkin as a constant while other parts of the roster changed around him. He is one of four Russian-born players to win three Stanley Cup championships, and his career has already put him among the top three in Penguins history in games played, goals, assists, points, power-play goals, game-winning goals and overtime goals.
What happens next is less about whether Malkin has a place in Pittsburgh and more about how much more he can add to a legacy already fixed in franchise history. With the extension now in hand, the Penguins can keep leaning on a player who has spent his entire NHL career with the team and still owns the kind of track record that changes the shape of a season whenever he steps on the ice.
