"I remember those first hours after Nikita was born, and it's kind of like someone flipped a switch," said George Birman, a longtime Penguins employee who's a good family friend of the Malkins. "He completely changed and he became such a guardian, a caring person. He's a great dad, he's a crazy dad (laughs), protective dad. He loves Nikita so much, it's unbelievable."
It's been wonderful for Birman - and for all of us! - to watch Geno embrace fatherhood with Nikita, who turned 7 on May 31. With Malkin still a big kid himself in so many ways, it's clear he has a blast being Nikita's dad, posting about some of their adventures to his Instagram account, @emalkin71geno. My personal favorite was the two of them posing in blazers on Nikita's last day of school, captioned, "We are smart and fun."
During hockey season, Nikita loves going to his dad's games, wearing a Penguins jersey and screaming "Let's Go Pens!" with the rest of the crowd. Then, during the summers, Evgeni enjoys taking his little boy to other sporting events, including basketball games, tennis tournaments and, most importantly, soccer matches, as 'fútbol is life' for Nikita.
For Nikita's birthday last year, Geno gifted him with a Lionel Messi jersey - which he'll surely be wearing even more now that the Argentinian superstar signed with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer, as Evgeni and his wife Anna have a residence in Florida.
"Geno fully supports him, but somewhere pretty deep down it's like damn, Nikita loves soccer more," Birman laughed. "Right now, he's so serious, and he's doing so good, so I don't think it's killing Geno that he plays soccer. He's a great skater. He's unbelievable playing hockey. But at some point, because he was doing hockey in the winter and soccer in the summer, he completely switched to soccer."
Nikita hasn't just inherited Evgeni's athleticism - he inherited his looks. "He looks just like you. It's uncanny, as if you were the same person," Evgeni's parents Vladimir and Natalia wrote in a letter to their son when he reached 1,000 points. "Anna says, there is nothing of mine here!'"
And personality-wise, Birman says that Nikita is competitive like his dad, which comes out whenever father and son play chess.
"When they are playing chess, it gets to the ridiculous point when they both start fighting," Birman laughed. "I'm like, dude, Geno, let him go, or let him win! But no. None of them wants to lose. When they are playing together, it's the funniest thing to watch them. One is like, you're not gonna beat me, you're my kid. And the other one is like, you're not gonna beat me, you're my dad. I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna watch and enjoy."
Well, maybe today, just this once, Nikita will let Geno win. Happy Father's Day to all of our hockey dads!
