PSR Showdown
Which player is more indispensible to the Penguins - Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin?
By Paul Kukla
NHL.com

Evgeni Malkin

Comparisons are nothing new to Evgeni Malkin. The buzz surrounding the 2004 NHL Entry Draft centered on whether Malkin or Alexander Ovechkin would turn out to be the better pro. That question may never clearly get answered since both are among the top handful of players in the NHL.

But when you focus on the Pittsburgh Penguins, specifically on Malkin and fellow superstar teammate Sidney Crosby, and attempt to decide which player would be indispensible, give me what baseball calls the "five tool player".

Off the ice, Malkin, because of his work-in-progress mastery of English, isn't yet cut out to be an NHL spokesman, like Crosby has been since his first day on the job. He wouldn't be described as an extravert by any stretch of the imagination, at least right now. He has, although, been much more comfortable recently in doing English interviews and features, such as a recent feature on PensTV with host Alyonka Larionov in which they made Russian pierogies.

It's on the ice where Malkin's bread gets buttered, and where he separates himself from the vast majority of forwards in the NHL. Arguably, his two-way play is only matched by the two -headed monster in Detroit known as Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. His NHL league-leading point total of 106 points is merely the tip of the iceberg in describing how dominant Malkin has been this season.

While many NHL pundits have stressed Crosby's "vision" as one of his main attributes, and it is spectacular, Malkin has five more assists than Crosby. Granted, Crosby has rarely had top-line talent for his wingers, so perhaps now with Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin that statistic will soon be evened out.

Malkin's shot is lethal and he is feared by goalies once inside the blueline. He rushes the net, gets the dirty goals and can score from the point with a wicked slapshot. While Crosby gets more than his fair share of goals, most of those will come from wristers and rebounds.

On the defensive end, which is very underrated, Malkin leads the NHL in takeaways with 87, 37 more than Crosby.

Malkin can do it all, and do it all very well. Given the choice of Crosby or Malkin, I'll take Gino!