The fifth-placed Magpies have a 7-4 record, one win less than they were at the halfway point of the 2006 campaign.
But last year Collingwood lost five games in the second half of their home and away campaign and were eliminated in the first week of the finals.
They currently have Nathan Buckley and four senior defenders - James Clement, Rhyce Shaw, Simon Prestigiacomo and Harry O'Brien - on their injury list.
But Malthouse said he is excited at the prospect of adding to the list of six debutants from 2007 in the second half of the season.
He felt the injection of young blood has been an important element of the current season and puts the Magpies in good shape compared with the last year.
"I reckon this time last year, we were a little bit running on empty," Malthouse said.
"We had a bad one against Melbourne - which we did last week incidentally - and we had that week's break, so we were highly competitive against Sydney, but I reckon that was just about the tank empty and we lost the next three games.
"I think the club itself, as much as we are one game down on last year, we are in a better position."
Malthouse said he was looking forward to seeing some of the familiar names back in defence but couldn't say when they might start returning.
"I can't predict when these (injured) blokes are going to come back. I think Presti might be back in perhaps three weeks; Clement and Buckley and all these other blokes I would say are a bit more distant before they are back. They've got to come back and get game time before they improve the side.
"One of the exciting things as a coach - and it should be for our supporters - is the likelihood that we will blood probably three to five extra players - we've done six already - between now and the end of the year. They are not going to come into the side without form and that's very very exciting.
"I think we've got a lot of upside to our younger players."
Malthouse pointed out Collingwood had only led for around 43 per cent of game time this season, but had won well over half of their matches, which he felt was an indicator of the players' commitment and the efforts of the leadership group.
He had no qualms about letting his youngsters loose on a talented Sydney forward line.
"In my way of thinking it's a great excitement to be able to play younger players on (Michael) O'Loughlin, (Barry) Hall, (Ryan) O'Keefe and (Nick) Davis and just see where they are at," Malthouse said.
"It hasn't let us down in the past - we don't win every game because young players make mistakes but they are almost forgivable mistakes, they are learning mistakes."
Malthouse refused to treat his young defenders as understudies and stressed it was a case of Collingwood always putting their strongest available side on the park.
"I don't want any kid running down the race thinking 'I'm only the stop gap player until Jimmy Clement comes back', because they end up playing like that," Malthouse said.
