Friday, November 03, 2006
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The first time Evgeni Malkin hit California, he soaked in everything.
"I was impressed," the Penguins' center said yesterday with teammate Sergei Gonchar acting as translator. "It was the first time I swam in the ocean.
"And I liked it because I was here to relax and not to work."
Malkin had sneaked away from his Russian team in the Helsinki, Finland, airport and flown to Los Angeles to spend two weeks this past summer before signing a rookie contract with the Penguins.
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During that time, he went boogie boarding, met Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, visited the set of "Pirates of the Caribbean III" and worked out with several NHL players at the Toyota Center.
Yesterday, he was back at that facility, the training site of the Los Angeles Kings and Los Angeles Lakers not far from the Los Angeles airport, to practice with the Penguins after scoring two goals the night before -- one the winner in overtime and one that set a modern-day record for scoring in each of his first six NHL games -- in a 4-3 victory against Los Angeles.
With an afternoon off after practice and no game until tomorrow night in San Jose, Malkin had no plans to retrace his footsteps from his summer visit.
"No, I'm going to take a nap," he said.
A modest approach for the hottest rookie and one of the best stories in the NHL this season.
"He seems to know how to handle pressure," said one of his agents, Pat Brisson, who helped bring Malkin here over the summer and visited practice yesterday.
"It's almost like he's indifferent. I don't know if he keeps it inside or what. But he's the same as he was a few months ago when he was here. He's just happy to play hockey. He's a kid in a candy store."
Malkin, 20, the second overall pick in the 2004 NHL draft, missed the first four games of the season with a dislocated shoulder and hasn't looked back since.
He has seven goals, two of them winners, and is second on the team with 11 points in six games.
He is tied for third among league rookies in points, but is far out in front as the only one averaging more than a point a game.
He leads the NHL with a 35 percent shooting accuracy. He leads the team with a plus-8 rating. And yesterday he was named the league's rookie of the month for October.
All of which induced him to look down at his skates when asked if he expected this kind of success.
"I never thought so," he said. "My main goal was to come back after the injury and get into the game and make the adjustment [to the NHL]."
Asked if he was enjoying himself, Malkin's answer was equally understated.
"It was my dream to play in the NHL, and now I'm playing here," he said. "I'm having fun. I'm very happy the team's playing well, and I'm very happy to be here."
It's safe to say the Penguins are ecstatic about his arrival.
"He made history," coach Michel Therrien said. "He doesn't stop. He seems to have a great chemistry with [linemate] Sidney Crosby. It's a good start, more than we expected. We knew he was going to be a great player, but he adjusted to the NHL pretty quickly."
Malkin has done it without speaking English.
"The most frustrating part is when you don't understand the coach and the guys when they are trying to help you on the ice in the game," he said.
Asked if he was starting to understand English a little, he didn't need Gonchar's assistance. He looked up and nodded. But he wouldn't utter a word of it.
A few minutes after his interview, Malkin was playing with Brisson's two young children. He was smiling and looked more relaxed than he had being interviewed, more relaxed than at the start of practice, when his teammates gathered around him and cheered.
Brisson said it just takes Malkin a while to come out of his shell.
"The first two days when he first got here, he was a little bit shook up. He was kind of lost," Brisson said. "After a few days, I saw his funny side and saw that he's a nice kid.
"I can see he's happy now. He's a good story."
Are you paying attention, Jerry Bruckheimer?
(Shelly Anderson can be reached at shanderson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1721. )
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