Rossi: Penguins grant Evgeni Malkins wish, and Pittsburgh is better for it – The Athletic

About a half-hour after Evgeni Malkin scored 50 goals for the first time, Mike Kadar walked into Ray Sheros office astonished.

Shero asked Kadar, the man whod helped Malkin rehab his surgically repaired knee the previous summer, what was wrong. Kadar left the office and returned a few minutes later with a puck that was cut in half.

It was the puck from Malkins 50th goal.

Ray, he told me it was mine as much as it was his, said Kadar, then the Penguins conditioning coach. I dont know what to say. Have you ever seen something like this before?

Shero had not. Nor did he have much advice. He had only this observation: Thats so Geno!

That is one of my favorite Malkin stories. There are so many others, but this is the one I like best: Despite a fairly fraught few months of negotiations, Malkin, who signed a four-year contract with the Penguins on Tuesday night, will be able to follow through on the goal he told me about way back during his rookie year. With his good friend Sergei Gonchar as an interpreter, Malkin said he wanted to play only for Pittsburgh, always with Sid.

Congrats, Evgeni your wish came true in the waning hours of what what was looking like it might be your last day as a Penguin.

Congrats, too, to general manager Ron Hextall your word was your bond, and after repeatedly saying you wanted to keep Geno, you did with not much time to spare.

It doesnt matter how it happened. It did. And everybody from Malkin to Hextall to the Penguins and Pittsburgh is better for it.

Malkin is as beloved as any player in franchise history. Hes earned that devotion from Penguins fans because hes been brilliant over the course of 16 years, if not the entirety of every season, always in moments that defied belief.

There was his record goal-scoring surge to begin a future Hall-of-Fame career.

Or The Geno Goal against the Hurricanes in the 2009 Eastern Conference final, only to follow it up by becoming the first Russian-born NHL player to win the Conn Smythe as MVP of the Penguins first of three Stanley Cup titles in the Sidney Crosby/Malkin era.

Oh, by the way, congrats are also due to Sidney Crosby. As The Athletic reported, as Malkin was discouraged a few weeks ago, Crosby visited Malkins home in Florida. Crosby also stepped in Tuesday to bring the Penguins and Malkin back from the brink a day after Malkin, feeling insulted and unwanted during negotiations, told his agent, J.P. Barry, the Penguins had waited too long to start talking about his desired four-year deal.

Malkin was set on testing the free-agent waters.

Or was he?

The Penguins hadnt been willing to firmly offer a four-year contract at the point when Malkin appeared to pull the plug on his Pittsburgh tenure. However, after talking to sources close to Malkin late Tuesday, Im convinced Malkin and Barry essentially called the Penguins bluff and played the only hand they had remaining to get a deal done in Pittsburgh: threatening to blow out of town as an unrestricted free agent.

If public reaction to Malkins possible departure was any indication, a divorce would have gone down as the most unpopular personnel decision in over 50 years of Penguins hockey. And thats saying a lot wounds have still not healed over the way former icons Jaromir Jagr and Marc-Andre Fleury left Pittsburgh. A big hole remains in Penguins fans souls because those players wont finish their careers the way Malkin, Crosby and Kris Letang will.

Malkin is staying, though.

Hes back to finish what hes always said he wanted to do: win at least one more title with Crosby and Letang, his self-described Canadian and French brothers.

This is as it should be, and not for nostalgia.

The Penguins havent lost four consecutive opening-round playoff series because those three werent good enough. They were done in by other roster deficiencies, and now Malkin has followed Letangs lead and signed a franchise-friendly final contract that will allow the Penguins to build a club better situated to contend for the Cup.

He wants to be the first Russian to win four Cup titles.

He also likes the idea of doing what the Steelers of the 1970s did tethering themselves to all future generations of fans in sports-mad Pittsburgh by adding a fourth title that would be, as Joe Greene said of the Steelers then, an invitation to immortality.

Will it happen? Who knows.

There will be an opportunity, and thats all anybody could have hoped for going into this seismic offseason. Hextall saved enough cap space to still do some work when free agency opens at noon Wednesday.

Unlike so many stars who are flipped for so many prospects, draft picks and spare parts, Malkin will get to go out on his own terms. Like Letang, Malkin got a full no-trade clause in his new contract. Neither player can be moved without his respective approval over the next four years.

And if youre thinking that Crosby is signed for only three years well, dont sweat that detail. He told The Athletic he wants to play at least another six, so hell be re-upping in a couple of summers too.

As a topsy-turvy Tuesday played out, I spent time working on a column of my favorite Malkin memories. The concept was to honor his time in Pittsburgh by peeling back the curtain on our unique professional relationship. I was struggling to wrap my head around the column because I didnt want to write it.

I will one day.

But that day is four years off.

Still, Ill share one more anecdote that shows the Evgeni who exists behind the Geno character that has so enraptured the Pittsburgh public for the past 16 years.

On my last trip to Moscow in 2019, Malkin sat at a restaurant table above the sparse facility where he trained and thanked me for again coming to meet him in his adopted Russian hometown. He explained that it meant a lot that over the years that Id made a point to speak directly to him as opposed to at him, that I took time to know his family and customs, that I helped him through early interviews when he wasnt comfortable with language, and that I write Geno stories when everybody else always writes Sid.

The journalist in me was uncomfortable. The person I am was stunned. This was a genuine moment between two people, but it was brief before I quickly moved on to something else.

So I asked Malkin if he remembered a particular week during his second season when I asked him every day what he had eaten for breakfast. He nodded.

Jelly toast, he said, smiling. You didnt believe me. But I like jelly toast. And I dont like to change what I like.

Evgeni Malkin loves playing for the Penguins.

And now that doesnt have to change for him.

(Photo: Kirk Irwin / Getty Images)

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Rossi: Penguins grant Evgeni Malkins wish, and Pittsburgh is better for it - The Athletic