by Pittsburgh’s Penguins striker Evgeni Malkin dressed for his 1200th NHL match on Friday evening at T-Mobile Arena while the Penguins faced the Vegas Golden Knights.
With his milestone, Malkin only becomes the second player in the history of the Penguins to reach the set behind Sidney Crosby, who patinated in his 1335th match on Friday.
Regarding its place in the NHL history, Malkin is now the 134th skater to reach 1,200 games, equaling Owen Nolan and a match behind Keith Tkachuk.
Meanwhile, Malkin is now only the fifth skater born in Russia to achieve the feat, behind Alex Ovechkin (1,473), Alex Kovalev (1,316), Sergei Gonchar (1,301) and Sergei Federov (1,248). Ovechkin, Malkin and Dmitry Kulikov are the only active Russian skaters with more than 1,000 NHL games.
Although Malkin was not on the match sheet in his 1200th match, he ranked second among the Russian scorers of all time with 510 goals and 1,337 points, by hunting Ovechkin only in each category. However, he is the head of help from all time in the country with 827.
The triple champion of the Stanley Cup and former winner of the Hart trophy ranks third in the history of the Penguins in each statistical category behind Crosby and Mario Lemieux.
