Evgeni Malkin wanted to congratulate his good friend Sergei Gonchar on 800 career points. He did so in hilarious fashion, atop a tiger in his home.
There’s an easy explanation for why
Evgeni Malkin is congratulating
Sergei Gonchar on his 800th career point. For one, they were teammates in Pittsburgh for four seasons and have played together on two occasions for the Kontinental League’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk. Malkin also stayed with Gonchar and his wife for three seasons at the start of the Russian sniper’s NHL career. As for why the Penguins’ Malkin congratulated Gonchar while seated on top of a stuffed tiger, that one might take some explaining.
Gonchar, now with the Montreal, reached the 800-point plateau with a pair of assists in the Canadiens doubled up the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3. In a strange way, it’s all the more fitting that Malkin congratulated Gonchar in feline fashion after the points came against the Flyers. You may recall that, during the Flyers time on HBO’s 24/7, former Philadelphia goaltender
Ilya Bryzgalov had
quite an affinity for tigers. In fact, his mask during his years in the City of Brotherly Love was adorned with a tiger. While we’re still waiting for the full explanation from Malkin, it might be safe to assume there’s some sort of Russian inside joke going on.
The Hockey News