Evgeni Malkin

Evgeni "Geno" Malkin is a hockey player and alternate captain for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL. He is considered one of the best players in the world. He is also a popular character in Hockey RPF.
==Fandom==
Malkin's public persona is genial and goofy (off the ice). Fandom has taken note of how Geno loves animals and childrenThe Extremely Exhaustive Evgeni Malkin Primer: Part 2 by chibirhm and uses lots of Russian eyeless smiley emoticons in his tweets. "Geno" is the anglicized version of his Russian nickname Женя, transcribed Zhenya: some stories use Zhenya when writing from his PoV.
Malkin's relationship with his home country Russia has at times been complicated since he "defected" from the KHL to play in Pittsburgh. Several stories use a more dramatic version of these events and/or show him preferring the US, despite his well-documented love for Russia.Evgeni Malkin loves Russia and Russian women almost as much as he loves sentence fragments by last angry fan
While he spoke very little English at first, his command of the language has much improved in recent years. Writers often struggle with correctly portraying his accent and manner of speaking.
He is most often shipped with teammate and team captain Sidney Crosby, and the Sid/Geno pairing is one of the fandom's most popular. He is also occasionally paired with fellow Russian and old friend Alex Ovechkin and with his linemate James Neal. In some stories he is part of the fanonical cabal of Russian hockey players (nick-named the 'Russian knitting circle'Is it bad? by Scarlet Siren). His former teammate and mentor Sergei Gonchar often appears in fic.
==Tropes & Fanon==
===Coming to NHL===
The fandom loves to explore Malkin's escape from Metallurg Magnitogorsk to play with Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL. In reality, Malkin had indeed a very strained relationship with the team during that period of time. Some fanfiction even adds a marriage component to his grand plan of escape (usually to Sidney Crosby). The marriage acts as an insurance/protection against Metallurg Magnitogorsk's attempt to take him back. However, in canon, Malkin and his old team made up during the 2012–13 NHL lockout (Malkin went back and played for Metallurg Magnitogorsk during the lockout).
===Language Barrier===
Even to this day, Malkin still speaks fragmented English in most fanfics. One tumblr post tried to analyze the pattern behind his way of speaking from a Russian speaker's perspective, so that writers can get a better grasp of portraying him. In some stories, Malkin uses Russian words here and there while speaking in English.
===Player Position===
Fanfics like to put Malkin on Crosby's line as a winger, and emphasize their psychic-like bond in reading each other's play on the ice. In canon, nowadays Malkin primarily plays as penguins' second line center, and only plays on the same line with Crosby mostly during the power play. Malkin and Crosby are nicknamed "two-headed monster" for their chemistry on the ice.
==Resources==
* The Extremely Exhaustive Evgeni Malkin Primer by chibirhm on livejournal (21 July 2012)
* Alex Ovechkin primer part 4: Evgeni Malkin by marina on dreamwidth (25 April 2012)
* Evgeni Malkin fanworks at AO3
==References==
Category:Industry
Category:Hockey RPF