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Does Malkin Have Desire To Follow Kovy Back Home? Prospect Camp Roster

July 13, 2013, 10:24 AM ET [125 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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Ilya Kovalchuk’s departure back to Russia has left the Devils in an extremely undesirable situation moving forward. Kovalchuk’s move back to Russia also opened up a can of worms with Russian players and their potential desires to return home, leaving their NHL teams in the dust.


The Penguins have one of the biggest and brightest Russian stars on their roster in Evgeni Malkin. Would Malkin ever decide to return to Russia?
The answer is very doubtful.

In an article written by Rob Rossi it states that Malkin does indeed enjoy his summers in Moscow but there was a reason that Malkin’s contract extension took only 5 days to complete. Malkin’s desire is to remain in Pittsburgh and play for the Penguins, for the long term.


The NHL lockout might have been the trigger for Kovalchuk to realize that he did not want to stay in North America but it had the opposite effect on Malkin. Malkin did not enjoy the attention of being a big star in Russia. He also did not enjoy the travel or the practice methods.

Given the way that KHL officials tried to keep Malkin in Russia in 2006, it is likely that he still holds at least a minor grudge about how that all went down. The likelihood of Malkin following in Kovalchuk’s footsteps is slim to none and that is great news for the Penguins and NHL fans alike.

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced the full roster of players that will be attending their prospect development camp from July 16-20. Some of the names on defense will be very familiar however most names will probably not be recognizable, especially at the forward rank. Here are the draft attendees.

Defensemen

Dane Birks, Alex Boak, Nick A’gostino, Brian Dumoulin, Scott Harrington, Olli Maatta, Reid McNeill, Derrick Pouliot, Harrison Ruopp, Philip Samuelsson, Ryan Segalla, and Clark Seymour

Forwards

Tyler Barnes, Teddy Blueger, Blaine Byron, Jean-Sebastien Dea, Jake Guentzel, Garnet Hathaway, Troy Josephs, Tom Kuhnhackl, Matt Lane, Matia Marcantuoni, Jayson Megna
Richard Nejezchleb, Adam Payerl, Grant Opperman, Carter Rowney, Bryan Rust, Oskar Sundqvist, Dominik Uher, A.J. White, Scott Wilson, and Anton Zlobin

Goaltenders

Eric Hartzell, Tristan Jarry, Sean Maguire, Matt Murray

Full player bios can be found here.


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The Penguins reached an agreement with restricted free agent Harry Zolnierczyk. It is a two way deal that will pay ‘Alphabet Soup’ 550k at the NHL level. The deal is for one season. Zolnierczyk will be looking to compete for a spot on the Penguins 4th line in the upcoming season.

That is all for now.

Thanks for reading!

You can find my non-Penguin related articles over at HockeyHurts.com

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