Every NHL dressing room has an order for who takes the ice before games, and it’s usually treated with more seriousness than anyone outside the room would expect. For the Pittsburgh Penguins, the matter was settled by four words from Evgeni Malkin.
Sidney Crosby explained how it happened during an appearance on Spittin’ Chiclets alongside former teammates Ryan Whitney and Paul Bissonnette. The complication was that Malkin missed the opening games of his rookie season in 2006-07 with a shoulder injury, which meant he wasn’t part of the order the team had established at the start of the year.
Crosby and Malkin order
When he finally returned to the lineup, he made his position clear without much of a negotiation.
“He was just looking at me. And he goes, ‘Three years, Super League,'” Crosby said, per Yahoo Sports.
The reference was to Malkin’s three seasons with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Russia’s Super League before he came to North America, which in his view made him the more senior professional of the two regardless of who had been in Pittsburgh longer.
READ MORE: How to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2026-27
Crosby didn’t immediately follow.
“I’m like, ‘What?'” he said, laughing at the memory.
He didn’t argue it either. Malkin had pulled rank, the order was set, and according to Crosby the two of them stuck with that same arrangement for the rest of their time together.
It’s worth remembering how little NHL experience either player had at that point. Crosby was in his second season, Malkin in his first, and Malkin went on to win the Calder Trophy that year. The pecking order was decided by a 20-year-old citing three seasons in a different league entirely.
Read more:
