{"id":93818,"date":"2025-08-25T04:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T04:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93818\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T04:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T04:15:06","slug":"kaprizovs-workouts-with-evgeni-malkin-are-a-crossover-episode-in-the-nhl-world-minnesota-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/93818\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaprizov’s Workouts With Evgeni Malkin Are A Crossover Episode In the NHL World – Minnesota Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAny hockey fan on social media has seen the videos and pictures of Evgeni Malkin<\/a> and Kirill Kaprizov<\/a> working out together back in their homeland of Russia. The idea of it felt a bit like a crossover episode in the NHL world. The younger Minnesota superstar and the older Sidney Crosby<\/a> sidekick seemed to materialize together in the same gym this offseason, and at first glance, it felt a little unlikely.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut after a bit of a think and some research, this actually makes so much sense, and Wild fans should be ecstatic that our Russian forward has a chance to spend time alongside Malkin.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMalkin and Kaprizov have played on the ice together during the 2019 IIHF Men\u2019s World Championships. They\u2019ve also skated together for events like the NHL vs. KHL charity game<\/a>, but their paths have not crossed as much as most fans would hope. That\u2019s why this summer has been a breath of fresh air. Both high-level players have been regularly featured on their Russian trainer\u2019s Instagram page, to the point that in a dinner picture, it was pointed out that the two weren\u2019t sitting together.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEveryone always wants to spin these sorts of cross-team friendships into trading for Malkin when?\u00a0or Kaprizov a Penguin soon?\u00a0But let\u2019s take the time to appreciate this unlikely yet fun friendship for what it is: The intersectional age-gap relationship between two Russian players who share a fun personality and a high-skilled hockey style. They may have a 7-inch height difference and play different positions, but the similarities remain.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite being a decade older than Kaprizov, he and Malkin struggled with the KHL-to-NHL pipeline. Not only did they both face logistical nightmares in simply getting to America, but they also had to deal with a language barrier in their own way.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tKaprizov, famously<\/a>, refused any sort of classes or tutoring in his new language. While he\u00a0received some coaching<\/a> from Minnesota native and teammate\u00a0Ryan Stoa<\/a>\u00a0before coming to Minnesota, Kaprizov arrived in America with a limited grasp of English and a wealth\u00a0of big dreams that he has been achieving.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a similar vein, Malkin was famous<\/a> for only muttering the word \u201chamburger\u201d in English for much longer than he probably needed to. He also watched<\/a> the Transformers movie constantly because not only did it help him with the language, but he also had a crush on Megan Fox.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOne thing that helped both of these Russians was forming a fast friendship with a non-Russian fellow player. Settling into a new country is always better when the person finds a co-worker to help them on and off the ice. Malkin found that in Crosby, while Kaprizov found something similar<\/a> in Mats Zuccarello<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Malkin and Crosby grew up together in the league, Kaprizov has been instrumental in spurring Zuccarello’s\u00a0late-career surge<\/a>\u00a0and also supporting him in some of the best years.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMalkin and Kaprizov have similar quirky personalities. They are both able to be serious, with Malkin known for his occasional contempt for the media, but in general, they\u2019re both happy-go-lucky. At one point, Malkin owned a \u201cprison-themed restaurant<\/a>\u201d in Magnitogorsk. He\u2019s also been the player to most successfully razz Sid the Kid during their years together.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Kaprizov doesn\u2019t razz his teammates like Malkin, he\u2019s been game to participate in social media videos, like the time he tried<\/a> tator tot hotdish with former Wild player Dmitry Kulikov<\/a>, who successfully goaded him into dropping an incredibly Russian-accented \u201cyou betcha\u201d that will continue to delight Minnesotans for decades to come.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMalkin and Kaprizov are different players. But in the end, Minnesotans can only hope that Kaprizov will have as long and storied a career as Malkin continues to have and that he maintains the same kind of positive and fun attitude.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Think you could write a story like this? Hockey Wilderness wants you to develop your voice, find an audience, and we’ll pay you to do it. Just fill out this form<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any hockey fan on social media has seen the videos and pictures of Evgeni Malkin and Kirill Kaprizov…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7524,575,85],"class_list":["post-93818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}