Quote Originally Posted by fungchen3 View Post
Unfortunately, the word for "setbacks" in Russian is "Malkin"
I don't think there was ever a setback in Malkin's injury. If you follow conventional wisdom, he hurt it in December in Columbus on a knee on knee hit from Jenner, never really got healthy, and aggravated it in practice after the all star break. At that point, I think Pittsburgh made the conscious decision to shut him down until fully healthy, with the payoffs in mind, rather than sit him out until he was healthy enough to play, especially given how well Pittsburgh was playing. As an owner, losing Malkin for a couple weeks in the middle of the season to have him fully healthy for the stretch run seems well worth the sacrifice when compared to only losing him for a couple of games and having him play at 60-80% for the rest of the season. In fantasy, playoffs is all that matters.