BOSTON -- For most of the hour-long family skate at Fenway Park on Sunday evening, Malkin and Letang skated the length of the ice together, passing the puck back and forth along the way.
No, not Evgeni and Kris.
It was their sons -- Six-year-old Nikita Malkin and 10-year-old Alex Letang.
Evgeni skated along with the two while Kris, dealing with a lower-body injury, watched from the sidelines:
A number of players had their children out on the ice with them. Jeff Petry skated around carrying his youngest son, while his older three boys raced around the ice in matching No. 26 jerseys. Brian Dumoulin was bent down on the ice at one moment while his toddler son Brayden took baby steps toward him, learning how to skate. Rickard Rakell, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust all skated around with their babies in their arms. Jeff Carter and Jason Zucker skated laps with their families as well.
The Penguins have played in a lot of outdoor games over the years -- this will be the sixth in the NHL for Malkin and Crosby, and the sixth for Dumoulin too if you include his two in college and his one in the AHL.
For the players like Malkin, Dumoulin, Rust and Guentzel, this latest trip outside has some additional significance that past games didn't have. The ability to share this moment with their children makes the game all the more special.
“It’s so much fun to be able to bring my son out there and be able to skate," Dumoulin said. "He doesn’t know how lucky he is now, but he’ll look back, I’ll look back on this and obviously I think it’s really, really cool. It’s really special to have him here and it’s special that we get to be a part of this event.”
Guentzel's son Charlie is a little too young to be able to remember this -- he was just born this summer -- but Guentzel called it "special" to be able to have him out there with him today.
“For me, it’s just cool to have a family and have a little guy coming around and to see how excited he is to be out here," Guentzel said. "When you look back on it, it’ll be special.”
Malkin took a few moments at the start of the skate to spend some time alone with Nikita, just passing the puck back and forth between the two of them. For Malkin, having Nikita join him outside carried some added importance. When Malkin was Nikita's age, he was skating on outdoor rinks after school nearly every day, and that's how he was introduced to the game. It was a cool moment for Malkin to be able to give Nikita a little taste of what those days were like.
"It was amazing," Malkin said as Nikita sat next to him in his stall, listening intently to his dad speak. "It's a different life for him, you know? When we were growing up, we always played outside. Almost every day I would play, after school I would go outside, we had a couple rinks outside. But this generation, these kids, they have a great life. They have everything. I hope he understands that to play outside, it's not easy to be a hockey player. I try to explain to him. To have the team together, kids together, it's an amazing experience for sure. It's a first time for him, he's excited."
Nikita (who becomes draft-eligible in 2034) looked pretty good on the ice for his age. He's a good skater and handles the puck well. He also looks just like his dad when he calls for a pass with the quick stick taps on the ice, and he even had a pretty good drop pass to Alex at one moment.
"He's practicing," Malkin said. "He's a good skater, he skates with Ty (Hennes) sometimes. I hope he plays hockey someday."
Regardless if Nikita, Alex, and the other baby Penguins become NHL players themselves one day, this Winter Classic experience will be a lasting memory for Penguins players and their families.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• The Penguins took a team picture on the ice before practice. Kris Letang and Josh Archibald (both lower-body) weren't there for the picture, though I did see Letang outside the locker room afterward with his family so he did make the trip. Both remain day-to-day. Chad Ruhwedel rejoined the team for practice and is continuing to make progress from his upper-body injury. Jeff Petry was out there for the team picture and skated in the family skate, but didn't practice as he continues to rehab from his wrist injury.
• These are the lines and pairings the Penguins used, with Bryan Rust getting moved up to the top line and Rickard Rakell going down to the second line:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Brock McGinn - Teddy Blueger - Jeff Carter
Danton Heinen - Ryan Poehling - Kasperi Kapanen
Drew O'Connor rotating in
Marcus Pettersson - Jan Rutta
P.O Joseph - Mark Friedman
Brian Dumoulin - Ty Smith
(Chad Ruhwedel)
• The power play units remained the same. Ty Smith quarterbacked the top unit with Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel and Rakell. The second unit remained P.O Joseph, Kasperi Kapanen, Rust, Zucker and Carter.
• The ice seemed pretty good from what I saw. I asked Tristan Jarry what it felt like for him and he said that it was good. "It was hard, pretty decent. It didn't get too snowy."
• Jarry said that the bigger concern in a venue like this is just what the sightlines are like. "I think the backdrop is the toughest part," he said. "Usually you have seats up against the glass with people in them. Here you'll have a little bit of a gap between seats, so that's the different." Marcus Pettersson echoed a similar sentiment about the sightlines, saying that it's easier to lose the puck when it goes up into the air. Teddy Blueger also said that the center-ice logo has a lot of black in it too, and said that it was easy to lose the puck in it.
• Weather is pretty great here, too. Temperatures were in the high-40s and early-50s. Not a drop of rain, and only partly cloudy. "It was perfect weather," Pettersson said.
• Players are a little concerned about the glare off the ice from the sun or stadium lights. Most of them wore eye black or had black stickers under their eyes to try to work through it, Blueger and Pettersson said that it helped. Nikita Malkin put the eye black on after the skate just to look cool.
• I asked Malkin what his favorite memory is from the other outdoor games he's played in: "Best memory is the Buffalo game (in 2008). It's the first game ever. We won that game, Sid scored in the shootout. It's an amazing experience for sure. It's really an outdoor game, 70,000 people. I like it. The NHL does it more and more, outdoor games. You have 82 games, and one game you play outdoors, it's pretty fun. Great experience for kids, for family to spend time together. I hope we win tomorrow and go to Vegas."
• The Penguins had a full shootout competition after practice, and it came down to Malkin and Ruhwedel. I'm pretty sure both players lost in the end. Malkin said that the consequence for losing was that he has to cook the team breakfast one day. I'm not sure if that's more of a punishment for Malkin or the rest of the team, when you think about it.
• The coaching staff shaved their mustaches off. The end of an era.
