Malkin’s Signature Run

On this day in 2009, not only did the Penguins lift the Stanley Cup after beating the Red Wings in Game 7 – Evgeni Malkin lifted the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

He then almost left it in Detroit, much to the amusement of Sidney Crosby.

As they were getting off the team bus at the airport for their flight back to Pittsburgh, both trophies were sitting on a table, waiting to be carried onto the plane. As Crosby prepared to grab the Stanley Cup, he called ahead to Malkin, who was already boarding.

“Geno! Hey!” Crosby yelled before saying with a laugh, “He forgot his trophy!”

It was a well-deserved accolade for Malkin, who became the fourth-youngest Conn Smythe winner at 22 years, 10 months after posting a league-best 36 points (14G-22A) in 24 games that postseason. The No. 2 pick in the 2004 NHL Draft joined Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Guy LaFleur and Phil Esposito as the only players to win both the regular season and playoff scoring titles since the 1967 NHL Expansion.

"He was just dominant,” Crosby has said, when reflecting on Malkin’s play that season. “You couldn't take the puck from him, whether he was physically just stronger on the puck or playing more of a finesse game and going through guys using speed, his hands, his hockey sense.”

As defenseman Brooks Orpik recalled in the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions film, before the playoffs began, everyone had to tell each other what they would provide to the team.

“(Malkin) said he was going to carry us to the Stanley Cup,” Orpik said. “He said it in broken English. Guys kind of got a laugh out of it, but you could tell he was really serious. He took it upon himself.”

Malkin had worked to develop that sort of ownership with Michel Therrien, his first NHL head coach after coming to North America for the 2006-07 season. In 2007-08, when the Penguins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final and lost to Detroit in six games, Malkin and Therrien met constantly throughout the year.

Therrien wanted Malkin to know how special he was, that his potential was off the charts with so much size, skill and scoring ability, and that he could be as impactful as Crosby.

“I want to say thank you to him. He gave me a lot,” Malkin has said of Therrien. “He tried to speak with me, like, every day, and tell me you need to be a top-five player in the NHL every year, not just when you’re a rookie. You need to win everything, like Hart Trophy, Art Ross, Conn Smythe Trophy. He would tell me this every day. He’d tell me you need to work so hard every day.”

So, while it was difficult for Malkin when Therrien was relieved of his duties that February and got replaced by Dan Bylsma, he understood that it was the spark the team needed to get back into the playoff picture. They ended up with a first-round matchup against cross-state rival Philadelphia.

Malkin had multi-point efforts in each of the first three games, scoring once in Game 1, once in Game 2, and twice in Game 3. But in Malkin’s opinion, he had a slow start against the Flyers, which is perhaps a testament to the sky-high level of play he knew he could reach.

He was held out of the goal column in the second half of that six-game series, and for the first two games of the Second Round against Washington, both losses.

But Malkin found the back of the net in Game 3, a 3-2 overtime victory for Pittsburgh, and scored the overtime winner himself in Game 5.

“He just took over, a little later in the series,” said Max Talbot, who was teammates with Malkin for the first five seasons of the Russian forward’s career. “He ended up winning the Conn Smythe, but it’s (playing) against Washington that really got him going.”

Malkin feels that being put on a line with Talbot and Ruslan Fedotenko during that run helped him break through and become the beast that he was for the remainder of that run. Malkin’s performance against the Hurricanes that year is his signature playoff series.

“It’s my best game against Carolina,” Malkin said. “I was just more confident, I started scoring more. I think that was when Coach changed the line, I started playing with Fedotenko and Talbot. We started playing together this series and we started understanding each other a lot. We just score, believe, and we win.”

In Game 2, Malkin completed his first career playoff hat trick with arguably the best goal of his career, The Geno. On the play, Malkin won an offensive faceoff forward. He retrieved the puck, carried around the net and scored on a spinning backhand shot into the top corner.

All in all, Malkin picked up six goals and nine points in just four games as the Penguins swept the Hurricanes to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for a rematch with the Red Wings.

“What Malkin was able to do in that series, that’s one that stays in your memory bank. He couldn’t be stopped,” Penguins color analyst Phil Bourque said in that same 2009 film before repeating, “He couldn’t be stopped. He had it in his head that he was going to dominate, and that’s exactly what he did.”

From there, it was a rematch with the Red Wings, the team Malkin had cheered for when he was a kid, during the Russian Five’s heyday.  

Bryan Rust, who was a teenager living at home in Michigan during that series against Detroit, recently reflected on what it was like as a Red Wings fan to watch Malkin in that series. “I was not a fan of Geno, because he was obviously unbelievable, and he was kind of making everything happen,” Rust said with a laugh.

Like Rust, I am also born and raised in Michigan. And what I remember most about that series isn’t Malkin’s goals or points. It was when he dropped the gloves with Henrik Zetterberg with seconds remaining in Game 2, a 3-1 Red Wings win. I remember being begrudgingly impressed by Malkin’s moxie, his willingness to challenge a veteran star like Zetterberg.

Zetterberg had won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2008. But after Malkin collected three assists in a Game 3 win; scored in a Game 4 win; and helped set up one of Talbot’s two goals in Game 7 to cap off his postseason, the award was his. So was the Stanley Cup. Just like he’d promised his teammates.

“It was like my dream was coming true,” Malkin said. “It was all a surprise to me, you know? Because I come to U.S., just only three years, it’s quick. It’s like, I come to the U.S. and after three years, we win the Stanley Cup. I can’t say because I don’t have a word to say how amazing of a feeling it is. I come back to my hometown, I come back to Russia, it’s all good things. You need to just believe and it’s everything. You can do anything.”

While Malkin went on to win two more Stanley Cups, collect more individual awards, and craft a legacy based on humor and heart, that run is the highlight of his Hall of Fame career, spent entirely with Pittsburgh.

“It’s special, you know? It's special for me, for my family,” Malkin said. “My son born here. It’s not just hockey, it's city, it's fans, it's friends. It's lots of memories here.”