Both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are on the verge of reaching major career milestones when the Pittsburgh Penguins play host to the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday.
Crosby, the Penguins captain, needs one point to become only the 10th player in NHL history to reach 1,600 regular-season points, while Malkin’s next goal will make him only the 48th to collect 500 tallies.
Crosby, to no surprise, will downplay his achievement, but has no problem singing the praises of his teammate.
“He got 800 assists the other night, 1,300 points … the next (goal) is a big one, too,” Crosby said. “I think he’s had a great start to the season, and obviously been doing it pretty well for a long time. So, those numbers are pretty impressive.”
Malkin collected one goal and two assists to post his third consecutive multi-point outing in Pittsburgh’s 6-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. Malkin has netted seven points in four games to kick off the campaign.
“For me, it’s all about partners, you know?” Malkin said. “I play with lots of guys, probably most guys retired, but I’m still playing. I always have fun with anybody. We always have a great team here. It’s good signing amazing players.”
Curiously, Crosby has yet to score a goal this season, but as long as the rebuilt Penguins are winning, nobody will complain.
“Our effort is where it needs to be,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think our intentions, for the most part, are where they need to be. … There’s also opportunities for us to improve and get better.”
The Sabres open a three-game road trip after claiming their first victory of the season with a 5-2 home win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Saturday.
The Sabres were held to a single goal in each of their first three clashes but finally broke through offensively.
“We knew if we just repeated what we did (in their home-opening loss to the Los Angeles Kings), we’d get results,” forward Tage Thompson said. “I think at the end of the day, that’s got to be our mindset going into every game, is not worrying about the results. They’ll take care of themselves. We keep playing hockey like that, we’re going to be in good shape.”
Before beating Florida, the Sabres had a disappointing clash with the Kings in which they lost despite outshooting the visitors by a 33-23 margin. Instead of panicking, the Sabres stuck with the game plan and were rewarded.
“We’ve been building our game,” Jordan Greenway said. “We’ve been pretty happy about how we’ve been playing overall. Of course, there’s things that we can do better to build, but it was good that we went through what we did. We’re learning from it and we’re becoming a really good team.”
Buffalo will also likely receive a boost with forward J.J. Peterka expected to return after suffering a concussion in the Oct. 5 clash with the New Jersey Devils in Prague. Peterka practiced the past couple of days on the top line with Thompson and Alex Tuch.
