Malkin has been teammates with Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang for those two decades, with the longest-tenured trio of teammates in North American professional sports tacking another season onto their time together.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat teammates. Great friends,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just here because we win three (championships). I hope we\u2019re here because we still play good. We showed last year we made the playoffs. I hope this year, the same, we help the team make (the) playoffs. I would like to play longer. Again, these are two of my best friends here. I\u2019m excited for one more year together.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Crosby\u2019s part, he mentioned the season\u00a0Malkin put together in 2025-26 a couple of different times. Malkin finished as a point-per-game player at age 39, putting up 19 goals and 61 points in just 56 games, missing 26 due to the aforementioned injury and a suspension. Malkin then recorded two goals and three points in six playoff games to cap off the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a great year last year, and I’ve been fortunate to play with him for so long, and it’s not something you take for granted by any means,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cJust grateful I’ve been able to play with him this long, and really happy for him. He had an unbelievable year, and it was great to see him get rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now 40 years old, Malkin quips that he\u2019s the old guy in the Penguins locker room, and that he\u2019ll have to keep using his experience to help the younger players, particularly the Russian-speaking ones.<\/p>\n
Malkin showed excellent leadership with the likes of Egor Chinakhov, Arturs Silovs and Ilya Solovyov last year, and has already built a rapport with newcomer Andrei Kuzmenko. They hadn\u2019t met before this summer, but ended up working out together back in Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s more fun. It’s more Russian language around,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cIt’s crazy, I’m here, like, 20 years, and probably the last 15 years, no Russians around. But now, it\u2019s almost, like, six or seven players. I hope they stay on team. I hope they show best game. And if I have chance to help, like any advice, go to dinner, just do it. I do my best, too. I know I’m old guy here, and I have experience. And just, anytime, anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what management expects from Malkin, along with continuing to produce at a high level and helping the Penguins take strides.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Kyle Dubas) said, we\u2019re excited you\u2019ll be here (this) year,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cThe team loves you, team likes you. We have great coaches. Last year, I showed (a) good game. I\u2019m excited to be here. I\u2019m here to win. … I\u2019m still hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Malkin has been teammates with Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang for those two decades, with the longest-tenured trio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-289105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}