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Malkin: Shades of Lemieux - Staal Here to Stay?? |
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There was a clip floating around the Internet for months before Evgeni Malkin made his Penguins debut, it was called Malkin Montage. The clip showed many jaw dropping moments produced by Malkin in the Russian Super League and during International play. Well, the young Russian super star delivered a few to the Pittsburgh faithful in the flesh.
Malkin played left wing on Sidney Crosby's line for the first time tonight, and he looked like he had been there for ages. The two took a few moments to find their groove, but when they did, it was magical. The two did their best to set each other up for scoring opportunities in the first period, but were unable to produce any. That all changed in the second.
Malkin took a feed from Colby Armstrong, who must be feeling like a lottery winner playing on this line, and sent a beautiful pass to Crosby for the go ahead goal. Crosby got the puck over Marty Brodeur, something that he has been working on. Word is that he was at Mellon Arena by himself yesterday with a wooden plank blocking the bottom portion of a net, shooting an ungodly amount of pucks into the top portion of the cage. He had been disappointed with the amount of pucks he had shot straight into opposing goaltenders this season.
Malkin then stole the show with what can only be called a Marioesque goal. He took a feed from Crosby, who was at his own blueline. Malkin pulled the puck in at the opposite blueline and was met by Brad Lukowich and Colin White. He deked them using a backhand forehand move and bore down on Brodeur. Malkin used what used to be Mario Lemieux's signature move, the backhand. Brodeur had to think he had Malkin stoned, when he deftly used his monster reach to push the puck inside the far post. Malkin leapt to his feet and punched the glass with pure excitement, then greeted Crosby with a huge hug.
Malkin shared another quality with Mario on this night, modesty. After scoring that spectacular goal, Malkin could only say that he had some energy when he came off the bench and that it was a great pass from Crosby. They caught the Devils in a change and he was able to score the goal. Nothing more, nothing less. Tonight we saw how special this kid is going to be.
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How can the Penguins send Jordan Staal back to Peterborough? I don't think that they can. He was promoted to the 2nd line tonight and continued to plead his case.
Staal showed the world that he does know how to score even strength goals, I know that there may have been some concern, notching his 3 in the past 2 games and 4th of the season. He also was a +2 and won 6 of 9 face-offs.
There seems to be a bit of an internal debate about Staal between Michel Therrien and Ray Shero. Nothing bad, just thinking businesswise as opposed to what is best for the on ice product. Shero would love to ensure that Staal does not become a free agent the same summer as Evgeni Malkin, and Therrien would love to plug a hole in his depth chart with a great defensive player with huge offensive upside.
In my opinion, Staal is here to stay.....he has handcuffed the Penguins. They cannot justify sending him back; he is too valuable to the team.
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