This weekend will be the first time the sides have played each other since last year's pair of grand finals; the draw in the first week and the Magpies' 56-point win in the second.
Malthouse said there was no more motivation in the fact his Pies were playing the Saints this week than if they were playing any other side.
"There's no added bait to it. We're travelling okay. If you said at the beginning of the season, new season new rules, coming off a record breaking year … next year doesn’t mean it's going to happen again," he said on Friday.
"You've got to get your head around that to start off. Senior players understand that pretty well, that every year is a new year.
"Our single goal by round 11, which is our traditional break, we would like to be in a very good winning spot. At the worst we can do is 8-3.
"We probably would have accepted that at the beginning of the season but when you're 8-1, it's another challenge to get little bit better.
"That's all it is. It's not so much whether it's St Kilda or Melbourne coming up in the next game. It's more the case of maintaining that urge, and we're always reminded by the media and certainly by myself, that historically, there's a hunger situation from a premiership year.
"It's almost like that now becomes a goal because you can't train for hunger."
The Magpies are coming off a six-day break following on from their 52-point win over West Coast on Sunday, which has taken up most of their focus this week as opposed to getting caught up in any hype associated with the grand final rematch.
Malthouse said the Pies were ready to face a side "on the march" that had benefitted from a recent injection of youth, with emerging Saints coming into the side in recent weeks and two more debutants - Tom Simpkin and Tom Ledger - to play on Saturday night, and a change in the side's game structure.
"That's one thing we're very aware of," he said.
"Confidence is a marvellous thing and it appears when you get injuries and have one of their great players - Lenny Hayes - go down, sometimes I think it can psychologically have an effect.
"I don't know that for certain but outside looking in, you'd say that's got to have a drawing power.
"There's no secret with what we've tried to do and other clubs in the past, when you start to introduce kids and they're enthusiastic and so forth, it changes the dynamics of your clubrooms.
"It appears to me, with the games I've watched them play now over the past month, there's a real buzz about the way they play."
Earlier in the week, St Kilda coach Ross Lyon said Collingwood midfielder Dale Thomas was "the best player in the competition at the moment" and he was "inspirational" to watch.
Malthouse said he didn't think Lyon's comments were an attempt at gamesmanship ahead of Saturday's game.
"If you re-listen to it, he didn't say he's the best. He said he was one of the best," he said.
"We tend to get things a little bit mixed up with what we want to hear and what we actually do hear and he certainly didn't say he was the best."
Thomas said on Friday morning he had received plenty of teasing from his teammates as a result of Lyon's statement.
"I did catch wind of that [the comment] after a lot of heckling from the boys down at the club," he told Nova FM.
"It’s embarrassing. If it was true, I'd probably sit back but it's not.
"All the boys have been into me. I started the row when I said, 'It's pretty good being the best player of all time' and then they said, 'No, he only said you were the best player in the league'.
"Heath [Shaw] and 'Dids' [Alan Didak] have been right into me, saying, 'How can you be the best player in the league when you're not the best player at our club?', which is also a valid point."
