Evgeni Malkin was on the NHL's weekly telephone conference call yesterday, a predictable development on one level. Even without Sidney Crosby, last year's most valuable player, the Pittsburgh Penguins are in the mix for top spot in the Eastern Conference, thanks in part to a February to remember from Malkin.
In 14 games, Malkin scored 26 points to take over the NHL scoring lead from fellow Russian Alexander Ovechkin, a feat that made him the NHL's player of the month for February.
Malkin and Ovechkin have been linked for some time. They were chosen with back-to-back picks in the 2004 entry draft, and they won the Calder Trophy in back-to-back seasons, Ovechkin in 2006 and Malkin last year.
Right now, they are 1-2 in the NHL scoring race, with the Penguins set to square off with Ovechkin's Washington Capitals on Sunday in the NBC game of the week. If it's anything like the last time the two teams met, when Ovechkin and Malkin one-upped each other at every turn with dazzling performances, it'll be must-see TV.
Evgeni Malkin celebrates another goal for the Penguins. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
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- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Washington Capitals
- Colby Armstrong
- Sidney Crosby
- Anders Eriksson
- Sergei Gonchar
- Evgeni Malkin
- Alexander Ovechkin
- Maxime Talbot
Their statistics and style may be comparable, but that's where the similarities end. Ovechkin has a booming, outgoing personality and has worked studiously at improving his knowledge of the English language. He doesn't mind going on television, and although he doesn't speak in long manifestos about the game, his team and the playoff race, he can break you up with one-liners and quips.
Malkin is just the opposite. Popular enough with his teammates, he didn't pick up much English during his final year in Russia, despite playing for an English-language coach, Dave King, and with a half dozen former NHL players, including Russians Dmitri Yushkevich and Igor Korolev and Anders Eriksson of Sweden.
On yesterday's conference call, using teammate Sergei Gonchar as a translator, Malkin answered exactly one question in English. Asked whether he understood more English than he spoke, Malkin didn't wait for the translation and just answered, "Yes" — breaking everybody up.
Closing in on two seasons in the NHL, Malkin generally lets his play do the talking for him. At least, that is, until yesterday, when Malkin ventured — mostly with Gonchar's help — to lift the veil slightly.
It wasn't perfect, and he may never be part of the NHL's star-making machinery like Crosby and Ovechkin, but Malkin was in there pitching, to the best of his ability.
Malkin began by suggesting there really was no rivalry with Ovechkin to speak of and that, mostly, what he wants to do is get the Penguins into the playoffs. Malkin thought he would be more ready for postseason play this time after running out of gas toward the end of his rookie season.
Now, he said, he knows the demands of the league better the second time.
Malkin still lives with the Gonchar family, and, according to his landlord, he is a "good housemate" — quiet, good with the kids, but he spends most of the time on the Internet, chatting to his friends back home.
Gonchar believes Malkin has the potential to win the Hart Memorial Trophy at some point in his career, saying: "Not only is he playing well himself and scoring those points, he's making the people around him better.
"Definitely, he has a chance. I don't know if it's going to be this year or next year, but at some point in his career, he will be very close to it, or might win it."
Along with Colby Armstrong and Maxime Talbot, Malkin and Gonchar taped a television commercial this year for a local Pittsburgh car dealership. The commercial is a YouTube staple — so wooden and deliberately cornball that it is absolutely priceless.
These sorts of opportunities rarely presented themselves when Malkin played in the steel town of Magnitogorsk, just outside Siberia.
"It was a different experience," Malkin said of his acting debut, "and it's going to help to start doing those things a little bit more."
Eriksson, who played the 2005-06 season with Malkin in Russia, said he didn't want to generalize, but …
"What really strikes me about Malkin is he's not the typical Russian player," Eriksson said. "He loved coming to the rink, loved playing, loved scoring goals and loved being the Guy. Obviously, Sid the Kid is a phenomenal player, but now that Malkin's getting a little extra [responsibility] and he's the go-to guy, he elevated his game. I've said it since he got here — and even after we played against him in Calgary — he could easily be one of, if not the best players in the league for the next decade.
"The confidence is just pouring out of him — and he can do it all. He has the soft hands. He can shoot the puck. He can still play the mean game. He's a smart player in the sense that he reads the game very well.
"The way he's been playing lately has been phenomenal."
Above all, Eriksson liked Malkin — as a teammate and as a person.
"He's a really good guy," Eriksson said. "We sat and talked — obviously not English, but I had Yuskie as my translator and we had the Swedish-English-Russian thing going — but to be as good as he is on the ice, even though he doesn't know the language, proves to me what a talented hockey player he really is."
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