Leeeny's Mien: Malkin's Game 2 Hat Trick

Blogging the City Of Champions. Burgh Sports and other randomness. You never know. I certainly don't.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Malkin's Game 2 Hat Trick

Even a day later, that third goal still drops my jaw in amazement. Here's some more Internet goodness about the win, and Geno's incredible night last night.

• Excerpted from the Stanley Cup Playoffs blog on ESPN's website:

The secret to Malkin's success? Mom's homemade soup and beef

Thursday, May 21, 2009
by Scott Burnside

PITTSBURGH -- The secret to Evgeni Malkin's success is out. Soup and beef.

"My parents are superstars now," Malkin said after scoring the first playoff hat trick of his career in Pittsburgh's 7-4 win over Carolina on Thursday night. "They've helped me in everything. My mom now before game is great cooker. I feel good now.

"I love Russian food, and my mom cooks Russian food. It's helped me. My favorite food is beef, and before every game I have soup."

Mama Malkin, I want your recipe. Are we talking borscht here? Mmmm, I love that stuff.

Mom cooks for Geno
Waves towels and cheers with Dad too
Hat trick for their boy

• And this excerpt, from Cam Cole of the Toronto Sun:

The hat-trick goal was out of this world: a call-shot. Not quite a Babe Ruth gesture to the outfield bleachers, but an offensive-zone faceoff where Malkin told his teammates he was going forward with the puck off the draw.
He fired it past Canes’ Matt Cullen, picked it up on the end boards, circled the net and whipped an unstoppable backhand in the few inches Carolina goalie Cam Ward had left open over his blocker.
Hats littered the Mellon Arena ice, Malkin surpassed Sidney Crosby as the playoffs’ scoring leader, and the NHL had yet another performance for the ages by a young star on which to hang a marketing campaign.
“That faceoff play is called the Geno for a reason,” said Pens coach Dan Bylsma. “He pushed through, went and got it himself, and after that, it’s just all him — he takes it to the net, spins on his backhand, and there’s not a lot of room where he put it.
“There’s not many players in the world can make that play. Two of them are on our team.” (Leeeny has to pinch herself when she reads that.)

• A quote from Geno himself, via the Philadelphia Examiner, of all places:

“Maybe its just one game. I am trying to play every game hard and smart. I try better every game.”

• How about this little animated-gif version of the "Geno play" goal. Right-click on it, select 'Save Image As...', and put it wherever you want on your hard drive. Enjoy it forever.

• All this, and I haven't even addressed Miro Satan's fight last night! That was epic all by itself. I'm still putting that post together, since I have some time to work with before Saturday night's Game 3 in Raleigh. And just to let you know what's in my mind for later, I've got big plans for a pre-game-4 post if we take game 3 and threaten the sweep. But first let's see how Saturday goes. The overachieving Canes have already come back in their previous rounds when they were down 3-2 and 3-1, so you can't completely count them out. But I'm not worried about playing in their building — I think we might be pleasantly surprised by the Pens-fan presence there. Carolina is a very tired team and is starting to show it, and I think that they may finally be getting their overdue come-uppance in this series. The Pens are playing right now like nothing on Planet Earth is going to stop them short of their goal.