Tampa Bay coach raves about Malkin
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Guy Boucher compares Malkin to Lemieux.
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It is not unusual for coaches to shower opponents with praise, but Tampa Bay's Guy Boucher went above and beyond Sunday when talking up Penguins center Evgeni Malkin. And he did it in his second language.
Asked earlier in the day about facing the NHL's leading scorer -- Malkin entered the teams' game at Consol Energy Center with 67 points in 48 games, including 21 points in his previous 13 games -- Boucher made a comparison of the highest order.
"[He's] not just racking up the points, but you look at the plays he's making, he looks like Mario Lemieux out there, just dangling [the puck] and doing what he wants to do," Boucher, a French-Canadian, said.
Lemieux was a Penguins Hall of Fame center and now a team co-owner.
Asked for specifics about what makes Malkin so good, Boucher obliged.
"He's gigantic," Boucher said of the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Russian. "On ice level, he's just a monster out there who can skate, sees everything, can put the puck inside out, inside your pants and out. He can shoot. He just has it all.
"You can't handle him one-on-one. That's what's tough. You don't know what he's going to do, first of all. And then he's got the strength, the size, the reach and the speed to really give it to you. With those dominant players, when they're not on, you can manage them. But when they're on, it's very, very difficult. You can ask your best defensemen to try to shut him down, but the reality is, he will get some scoring chances."
Tampa Bay winger Ryan Malone, a Western Pennsylvania native and former Penguin, missed his seventh game in a row because of an unspecified injury -- but not by choice. He is pretty much healthy, but the Lightning wants to be cautious.
"He's begging to play," Boucher said. "For him, he's always ready to play. We have to manage it for him. I'm very tentative -- not because of the quality of the player, obviously, but because we want to make sure he doesn't miss any more [games from re-injury]. We don't want him to take a chance.
First Published February 13, 2012 12:00 am
