Brian Burke on Evgeni Malkin's 'surge,' Brandon Tanev's penalty and tremendous tales of St. Patrick's Day

New Penguins president of hockey operations Brian Burke was working on St. Patrick’s Day, something the Irishman hates to do.

“My whole career I refused to work on St. Patrick’s Day,” Burke told Josh Getzoff of 105.9 The X on Wednesday. “I usually go to Mass in the morning. Then I go to the pub in the afternoon. And then I go home before the idiots come out.”

Burke was forced to punch the clock on St. Patrick’s Day once in the early 1990s as well.

“My worst St. Patrick’s Day was when I worked for the NHL, and Gary Bettman made me fly the Stanley Cup out to Helsinki,” Burke recalled. “I got there on St. Patrick’s Day, did a press conference that the Winnipeg Jets were holding training camp in Helsinki with Teemu Selänne, then I flew back that afternoon. And I got back to Manhattan at 6 o’clock in the afternoon.”

Speaking as someone who has spent a St. Patrick’s Day or two in New York City, that’s plenty of time.

Plenty … of … time.

One of Burke’s duties this St. Patrick’s Day was to host a half-hour of radio with Getzoff during which they touched on several topics of chief importance to Penguins fans. The most pressing of which right now is the health of center Evgeni Malkin.

Burke was speaking prior to Malkin ending up on long-term injured reserve, so he didn’t provide any clarity on the specifics of Malkin’s injury. Nor did he have a prognosis for a return.

But in his praise of Malkin, one could glean how massive of a loss No. 71 will be, especially in the way Burke sang his praises of late.

Before his first-period injury against Boston on Tuesday, Malkin had registered at least one point in all eight of the team’s games this month.

When Getzoff asked Burke about the main reason for the Penguins’ recent run of improved play, he cited three things:

• The return of defenseman Brian Dumoulin

• Improved goaltending

• Malkin’s “surge”

“Sid has been Sid since I got (to Pittsburgh),” Burke said of his hire last month. “But Geno has really cranked it up. That has given us a two-line attack.”

Burke also had a pointed criticism of Tuesday night’s five-minute major assessed to Brandon Tanev for his hit on Boston’s Jarred Tinordi.

“I thought for sure they were going to rescind the major and stick with a minor penalty,” Burke said. “Although I didn’t think it was (even) a minor penalty. Body contact is a part of this game. And it’s unfortunate (Tinordi) was injured. But that’s a clean hit for me. And I’m baffled that they could review it on their tablets and not get it right.”

Burke insists he’s not looking at the play through black-and-gold glasses since he claims to have told Penguins president David Morehouse that the hit from Washington Capitals’ player Tom Wilson on Penguins forward Mark Jankowski shouldn’t have been suspendable.

“I think it is a clean hit,” Burke said of the Tanev-Tinordi play. “It’s chest-to-chest contact. A good 10 to 12 feet from the boards. It’s not in a dangerous proximity to the boards. There’s no leaving the feet. No elbow. No stick. Clean hit.”

Burke also said this of the looming need to soak up all four of the remaining points against the struggling New Jersey Devils over the next two games.

“The teams in front of us have racked up points in the lower end of the division,” Burke said. “Where every game is a four-point game, you have to do that. You have to get points when you can. You have to get points when you should. Because they are all four-point games.”

The Penguins lost to the Devils, 3-2, Thursday night.