CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Evgeni Malkin remains as passionate as ever about hockey as his 21st season with the Pittsburgh Penguins begins.
Whether it's his last, be it in Pittsburgh or anywhere else, only his body knows. And right now, it's not telling the 40-year-old Russian star anything.
“I mean it’s a hard question,” Malkin said Friday. “We see what’s going on during the season, you know. And right now I won’t say yes.”
He also won't say no, though he has one very clear metric that will play a massive role in whatever happens beyond this season.
“If I not feel hundred percent, I’m not playing,” Malkin said, adding that if he's not helping the team to win, “I'm retired.”
Malkin was able to turn the clock back a bit last year, posting 19 goals to go with 42 assists despite missing time with injuries. He averaged over a point per game for the first time since 2019-20 and seemed fueled by the desire to prove to Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas he was still worth the investment.
Dubas played his cards close to the vest until after Pittsburgh's first-round playoff exit to Philadelphia. He praised Malkin's effort and about a month later, negotiations that appeared a little tense outwardly resulted with Malkin signing a one-year deal to remain with the club where he's won three Stanley Cups, two scoring titles and an MVP during a career that will almost certainly end in the Hall of Fame.
The deal also extended the partnership between Malkin, captain Sidney Crosby and defenseman Kris Letang to 21 years and counting, the longest three teammates have ever played together in major North American professional sports history.
Though Malkin believes it's production, not nostalgia, that has kept them together.
“It’s not we're just here because we win three Cups, you know,” he said. “I hope we’re here because we still play good.”
The Penguins are banking on it. Pittsburgh largely kept together the roster that finished a surprising second behind Carolina in the Metropolitan Division, including re-signing forward Egor Chinakhov, a Russian who blossomed while playing alongside Malkin after being acquired in a trade with Columbus.
There are now four Russians on the team, allowing Malkin the chance to serve as a mentor in the same way former Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar did for him two decades ago.
“Any advice, any like ‘Go to dinner,’ you know, we just do it. “I'm the old guy here and I just have the experience.”
Malkin begins the year with 1,407 career points, just 14 shy of surpassing Hall of Fame center Adam Oates to climb into the top 20 on the NHL's all-time list.
He's done it while serving as the emotional ‘yin’ to Crosby's more reserved ‘yang.’ If Malkin had ended up somewhere else, maybe he'd had been the face of the franchise. He's long made peace with the trade-off. If this is his final season, it's been a great ride. But he's not quite ready to head off into the sunset just yet.
“I think last year I showed my good games, and I am excited to be here,” he said. “And again, like, I’m here to win.”
See AP’s full NHL coverage here
FILE - Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin plays during Game 3 in the first round of the NHL Stanley Cup hockey playoffs, April 22, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
Russians on Friday began three days of voting in the country’s first wartime parliamentary election, which features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance.
Authorities spread the election over the weekend, ending Sunday, in a bid to boost turnout among the 111 million eligible voters, and they even allowed electronic balloting. Turnout was about 30% as of late Friday, including online voting, according to the Central Election Commission.
The Kremlin wants the parliamentary election — the first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — to underline public support for the war and give a veneer of legitimacy to its action. It has sought to avoid any political risks by stamping out even the slightest sign of dissent.
“Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland,” President Vladimir Putin told the nation before the vote.
The Kremlin said Putin voted online Friday and released images of him in front of a computer screen.
The main Kremlin party, United Russia, is all but assured to retain its overwhelming control of the lower house, the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with the government on all key issues also are expected to retain their presence.
Voters cast two separate ballots, filling half of the Duma’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest are contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.
Russians interviewed by The Associated Press expressed different expectations from the election.
Dmitry Kirillin in Moscow said earlier this week that he would like “to see some changes. To see a different party” at the helm. But Muscovite Alexander Vertukhin believed “what United Russia and the communists are doing is quite sufficient; their platforms cover everything.”
Speaking at a Moscow polling station Friday, pensioner Galina Vavilova said she thought ending the war in Ukraine “is the main thing, of course.”
“That is the most important thing right now. Everyone wants peace, that’s what it comes down to. So that our guys are safe and sound,” she said.
Another pensioner, Lyudmila Kalinina, wished for life “to stabilize for the better” and for “an end to the big divide between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, because, after all, many people don't live a very sweet life.”
Vladimir Chubarev, a 72-year-old professor, expressed hope “for all the important initiatives our government is undertaking to succeed,” adding: “And, of course, for victory.”
The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races. Additionally, some anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.
The election follows a summer of Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon also were attacked. The damage has exacerbated problems for the Russian economy and brought the war home for millions.
In Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, polling stations were briefly closed because of a threat of a drone attack, local officials said. One polling station in the Krasnodar region had to be set up in a different venue after a drone shattered windows there, said Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova.
For the first time, the parliamentary election includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn't fully control. Voting also is taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Voters dropped their ballots in a box at one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.
In the Russian-held Luhansk region, 14 polling stations were using backup power sources after Ukrainian drones damaged electrical lines, Pamfilova said.
Separately, Russian officials said Ukrainian attacks earlier this week killed a polling station chief and wounded another in the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the accusation.
Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments and international organizations not to recognize the election, warning Ukrainians that taking part in organizing the balloting could carry criminal liability.
European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand also called the voting in Russian-held regions “illegal” and said the European Union condemns it.
“These so-called elections represent yet another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognize either the holding of these, so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results," he said.
Wigand said the way the elections are held “underscores the continued and deepening erosion of democracy in Russia," and that the Kremlin “deprives voters in Russia of a genuine choice about the future of their country.”
He also noted that Russia decided not to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, disregarding its commitments. He vowed the EU will continue to support Russian civil society organizations, human rights groups and independent media.
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Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
Voters cast ballots at a polling station during Russia's parliamentary election, in the Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
Russian President Vladimir Putin votes online in the parliamentary election, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Voters leave voting booths during the parliamentary election in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, with an image of Soviet novelist Valentin Pikul on the wall. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Voters use an electronic voting system in the parliamentary election in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
A voter holds her ballot prior to voting in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
Russia's Security Council Deputy Chairman and the head of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev casts a ballot in the parliamentary election in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Ekaterina Shtukina, Sputnik, Pool Photo via AP)
A voter casts a ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
Voters cast their ballot for the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
A woman leaves a voting booth to cast her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
A woman walks to cast her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
A woman casts her ballot in the parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)
