News Article: Malkin Opens up about 18-19 season

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I didn't think it was even remotely possible for Sid or Geno to be more likable. And here we are.

Yeah it's kind of ridiculous, honestly. Both of these guys have won everything... multiple times. Goddamned legends. I don't know how mad people could really be if one or both were kind of a prima-donna. But it's to the point with both that I feel like the media almost has to invent and fabricate things since there is literally never any controversy or lack of solidarity for them to help sell subs.

 

[ColePens]

I love these guys...the care factor is off the charts, unlike some other Pittsburgh sports organizations...

That's what I was thinking. One organization is embarrassing us. The other CONSTANTLY delivers and makes me so proud.

The sid and geno era has been incredible. I love it so much.

 

[Gurglesons]

Nothing's necessarily soured. Rossi didnt mischaracterize what Geno said, he just referenced a lot of unnamed sources for the acrimonious Malkin/Kessel aspects of the article.

He also went out of his way to state that Geno denied the "him or me" trade request.

Meh. Rossi gets a bad rep because he is an awkward dude.

Most of his writing is pretty to the point and accurate aside from some of his opinion pieces.

 

[MrBurghundy]

Re: Kessel

I'm honestly pretty shocked about that, but it makes sense, I think.

And Russians (and Slavs in general) tend to have a hard time opening up, and the language barrier doesn't really help. I'm glad we have Galy for that, if nothing else-- kind of like Jagr and Hrdina in the early 90s. I feel for Geno. Соболезнование, товарищ!

Is Galchenyuk bilingual?

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Is Galchenyuk bilingual?

Yeah from everything I've read he is actually trilingual - English, Russian and Italian.

 

[MrBurghundy]

Yeah from everything I've read he is actually trilingual - English, Russian and Italian.

Well shit. Ok then.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Well ****. Ok then.

I'm admittedly not a huge believer in Gooch. But his ability to find soft spots in and around the circles, his ability to shoot the puck in a hurry and Malkin having someone he can kind of take under his wing and relate to in the same language all make me at least very intrigued.

 

[Peat]

Rossi isn’t writing this article without Malkin or his camp’s permission.

He’s writing Malkin’s career spanning biography. No way he is souring that relationship with heresay.

Yup.

I'm not saying Rossi is a 100% reliable and sober in writing this article, that there's no embellishments, but there's not going to be anything in there that'll displease Malkin. Particularly about a guy Malkin sees as a friend.


I'm going to include one more quote that I think will make people happy:

'Soon Malkin and Trinca [Alex Trinca, Penguins assistant strength and conditioning coach] were accompanied by Besa Tsintsadze, a former competitive figure skater who is now a power-skating specialist and has worked in the past with Malkin and Crosby in Pittsburgh.
“We had an incredible 10 days of skating and he went hard,” Tsintsadze says. “What I like is when Geno said, ‘Besa, you come to Miami and we keep going.’
“You know, everybody is saying Geno is finished. I see him skating strong again, and I say he’s going for another great five years now.” '

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

True enough. It does provide a "our hands were tied" narrative.

But for my part... I still see it a little both ways. I'm sad to see an elite, impact player go with no clear replacement other than this magical "depth" people often seem to crow about right before a trainwreck season, offensively. But I also never saw Kessel as a forever-Penguin and could see conflicts brewing that were undeniably Kessel-centric a while back.

If the ultimate result is a jacked, determined, angry, often-beast-mode Geno... well...

I'll take that Geno any day. I just think it's all for naught until the real problem's been excised.

We'll see this year.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I'll take that Geno any day. I just think it's all for naught until the real problem's been excised.

We'll see this year.

Yeah everyone keeps glossing this over but I still see it as a potentially massive problem that has gone essentially unaddressed.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Is Galchenyuk bilingual?

Yep.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Meh. Rossi gets a bad rep because he is an awkward dude.

Most of his writing is pretty to the point and accurate aside from some of his opinion pieces.

Whatever anyone thinks of Rossi, there was precious little negative from Malkin himself about Kessel that I saw.

That stuff was pretty much exclusively from "team sources" who clearly have a dog in the fight. We've seen this movie before.

 

[Beauner]

Yeah everyone keeps glossing this over but I still see it as a potentially massive problem that has gone essentially unaddressed.

assuming we're talking about Him, I mentioned a couple days ago that it reminds me of Scuderi going into the 2016 season. I can't really get excited or hopeful until he's gone.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

assuming we're talking about Him, I mentioned a couple days ago that it reminds me of Scuderi going into the 2016 season. I can't really get excited or hopeful until he's gone.

Indeed I am. And I feel the same way you do. It's like a dark cloud over this incoming season.

Mark my words... between injury, underperformance by other players and Sullivan simply not being able to help himself... it will rear it's ugly head again and again until he's gone.

 

[Peat]

On a side note, I'm not that impressed that the org hasn't noted his isolation and made a bit more of an effort to have some more guys around who he can be himself with. Obviously talent is always the main thing, but they couldn't have found a Russian or two for the org? Just gotta look at some of the development group and baby Pens inteviews this summer and see how stoked the Finns are that there's a little cluster of them to see how much difference it can make to a player - or, you know, common sense.

It feels weird that one of the things I'm most optimistic about with Galchenyuk is that having a guy who speaks his language and who'll naturally look to him as a leader will help Geno with the mental side of his game (and yeah, I know people have made that point already).

 

[Jacob]

Had to look it up but Galchenyuk's dad spend the late 90s playing in Italy so I guess that's where he picked it up.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

On a side note, I'm not that impressed that the org hasn't noted his isolation and made a bit more of an effort to have some more guys around who he can be himself with. Obviously talent is always the main thing, but they couldn't have found a Russian or two for the org? Just gotta look at some of the development group and baby Pens inteviews this summer and see how stoked the Finns are that there's a little cluster of them to see how much difference it can make to a player - or, you know, common sense.

It feels weird that one of the things I'm most optimistic about with Galchenyuk is that having a guy who speaks his language and who'll naturally look to him as a leader will help Geno with the mental side of his game (and yeah, I know people have made that point already).

On one hand, yeah.

On the other, the list of Russians who'd jibe with Sullivan has to be pretty short.

 

[HandshakeLine]

And to further that point, @Peat, this organization should know better, with Lemieux and Jagr.

 

[HandshakeLine]

On one hand, yeah.

On the other, the list of Russians who'd jibe with Sullivan has to be pretty short.

Galchenyuk is probably at the top of that list simply because of his work ethic.

 

[Empoleon8771]

On one hand, yeah.

On the other, the list of Russians who'd jibe with Sullivan has to be pretty short.

Not really, unless you're acting like every Russian player is like Alex Semin. Sullivan just likes players who give 100% effort and shut the **** up.

 

[billybudd]

I think trading Malkin would have been a bad decision, but I think people are looking at the idea of trading Malkin too emotionally. Combining the terrible playoff performance last year with wanting to get younger, trading Malkin, who is 33, makes a ton of money and is coming off a bad year, does have a justification. I think it's a bad decision and there are more arguments against it, but the thought of moving Malkin isn't as blasphemous as the thought of moving Crosby.

I don't consider myself to think particularly emotionally when it comes to asset management or getting attached to players. You can look through the trade thread of any well-liked player to confirm that. Even with Despres, I basically said "I don't like this as a long-term move, but Lovejoy probably makes us better in the short-term, even though I understand why everybody still hates him from his last time here."

I don't really see any argument that trading Malkin helps you unless you're going into a full rebuild. His age, salary, NMC, injury history and the perception of him as inconsistent and mercurial (a perception that far, far exceeds reality) means that you'd be getting like 40 cents on the dollar in a trade. If you even get that.

The maximal approach with 71 from a dispassionate perspective seems to me to be that you just ride it out with him until he says its over or becomes such a liability at his salary that you can't justify giving him a roster spot over a safe, nondescript forechecker (the Lucic/Perry scenario), which is a point he's not close to yet.

 

[ColePens]

This also does highlight that we are keeping JR's leash waaaaaaaaaaaaay too loose. I understand he earned it with 2 Cups, but this guy was an explosive waiting to go off and we all knew it.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I don't consider myself to think particularly emotionally when it comes to asset management or getting attached to players. You can look through the trade thread of any well-liked player to confirm that. Even with Despres, I basically said "I don't like this as a long-term move, but Lovejoy probably makes us better in the short-term, even though I understand why everybody still hates him from his last time here."

I don't really see any argument that trading Malkin helps you unless you're going into a full rebuild. His age, salary, NMC, injury history and the perception of him as inconsistent and mercurial (a perception that far, far exceeds reality) means that you'd be getting like 40 cents on the dollar in a trade. If you even get that.

The maximal approach with 71 from a dispassionate perspective seems to me to be that you just ride it out with him until he says its over or becomes such a liability at his salary that you can't justify giving him a roster spot over a safe, nondescript forechecker (the Lucic/Perry scenario), which is a point he's not close to yet.

Eh, if the Penguins actually considered moving Malkin, I think they could still get a Trocheck caliber player or better back for him. In terms of the justification, I think the argument for moving Malkin would be similar to the justification that the Penguins gave for moving Kessel, wanting to make changes and get younger. The difference is that Malkin doesn't have the truck full of baggage that Kessel has.

 

[Gurglesons]

On one hand, yeah.

On the other, the list of Russians who'd jibe with Sullivan has to be pretty short.

What does this even mean?

Your agenda is palpably wet over this.

 

[Peat]

And to further that point, @Peat, this organization should know better, with Lemieux and Jagr.

I was about to say that you can't blame the org for not having a long enough institutional memory to retain that, then I remembered who owns the org and felt very, very stupid

On one hand, yeah.

On the other, the list of Russians who'd jibe with Sullivan has to be pretty short.

Ach, nevermind Sully. He's been here three and a half years. Gonchar left in 2010 (although obviously has been around as a coach since then). There's, what, about 5 years where they might have done something, and what did they do other than Plotnikov? Why not try and draft and develop some of them?

Maybe it's difficult to find guys who'd fit his style now, but the org in general has flubbed it.

Not really, unless you're acting like every Russian player is like Alex Semin. Sullivan just likes players who give 100% effort and shut the **** up.

Hell, a group of players who don't play the same language as the journos would be his dream