Except from “The stories you don’t know about Evgeni Malkin’s journey to 1,000 points” by Rob Rossi
Max Talbot had no idea how he would handle rooming with Malkin on the road during the 2007-08 season. Between them, they spoke three languages but didn’t have one in common.
After the first couple of road trips, Talbot realized that he and Malkin did have something in common: the “Transformers” movies. During his second NHL season, Malkin became obsessed with the original “Transformers” film after Talbot purchased it on their hotel room’s television the night before a game.
“Oh, Geno watched it, like, every night,” Talbot said. “I mean, it’s not a great movie, you know? You can see it once or twice. But Geno … he always wanted to watch that ‘Transformers’ movie. You could say it got a little bit annoying.”
One night, Talbot attempted to coax Malkin into going out for dinner. Malkin declined. He invited Talbot to order room service and join him for a viewing of his favorite movie. It became the last straw.
“I said, ‘Geno, why do you always watch that movie?’” Talbot said. “He said, ‘Look (at) girl, learn English.’ And, honest to God, I probably laughed for the next five minutes.
“He had a crush on that actress (Megan Fox). He watched the movie because she was in it, right? And I guess (Sergei) Gonchar had told Geno to learn English by watching the same movie over and over. So, Geno watched that ‘Transformers’ movie because he liked that girl.”
A few weeks later, during his first group interview with Pittsburgh media, the ice was broken when Malkin recognized the word “Transformers” during a question I asked. The next day, when reading my story to Malkin, Gonchar did Talbot a favor.
“Gonchar said to Geno, ‘You know, there is a second movie,’” Talbot said. “And all I could think was ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ At least it wasn’t the same movie the rest of the year.’”
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