PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, February 2, 2007
It was a fairly typical night for Penguins rookie Evgeni Malkin.
He scored on a spectacular waist-high deflection in the first period, assisted on a goal in the second period, blew the roof off Mellon Arena with the winning goal in the shootout - and was named the game's third star.
That's not easy to do.
Nor is it easy to dramatically flee your homeland in August, sign an NHL contract in September, turn in one of the more spectacular first halves of any rookie in NHL history and go largely unnoticed.
Yet that is precisely what Malkin has done.
"It's hard to believe," Penguins general manager Ray Shero said Thursday night, between the first and second periods of a rousing 5-4 victory over the Montreal Canadiens. "What's he got, 25 goals? I mean, there was hype on him early, and then all of sudden he was almost a little bit under the radar. It's pretty incredible."
If he could speak English, Malkin would probably tell you that being under the radar isn't always a bad thing.
It comes in handy when you've just run away from your employer. That's for sure. It's not a bad thing when you're hiding out in a foreign country awaiting your visa, either.
Which is where Malkin was six short months ago, after he bravely bolted his Russian team during a stop in Finland.
A modern-day Russian defector, Malkin feared for his family's well-being but pushed on. Nothing was going to stop him from realizing his NHL dream, not even the best efforts of his former team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, which sued to stop him from playing for the Penguins.
That hassle finally disappeared yesterday afternoon, when a court ruling in New York dismissed the Russian club's complaints against the NHL and the Penguins.
Not that those complaints were distracting Malkin. It's the rest of us who've been distracted, what with Sidney Crosby's rapid rise to the top of hockey's food chain, the Penguins' headline-grabbing pursuit of a new arena and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury's scintillating performances of late.
Is it possible we've taken Malkin for granted?
Shero's probably right. Malkin's early success made it seem normal for a 20-year-old who missed half of training camp to be lighting up 10-year NHL defensemen on a nightly basis.
And on the rare night Malkin went scoreless, we were disappointed.
Some of us complained.
For the record, Malkin has 55 points through 46 games. That's four more points than Crosby had through 46 games last season.
It also puts Malkin (25 goals, 30 assists) on pace for 92 points, which would be one of the top 10 rookie point totals in NHL history. If he never played another game, he'd have a higher career points-per-game average (1.195) than Mark Messier, Gordie Howe, Ron Francis and Steve Yzerman.
Imagine if he gets white-hot the way Crosby did down the stretch last season.
Imagine the kind of numbers he'd putting up if he didn't miss half of training camp and the first four games of the season with a shoulder injury, if he'd played every power play and if he hadn't been forced to adjust to playing a little left wing.
Geez, we might be talking about him then.
Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at jstarkey@tribweb.com
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