Celebrating Evgeni Malkin’s 39th birthday

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesEvgeni Malkin has managed to somehow be in the shadows of the two best forwards of the salary cap era at the same time. There’s the team aspect with Sidney Crosby and the country/draft year area with Evgeni Malkin.

But Malkin remains one of the best to ever do it. Only Crosby and Malkin have scored more points since 2005-06.

Malkin and Crosby are also the only two players in the last 20 years to score at least 500 goals and tally 800 assists, though Patrick Kane could join that club soon.

(Speaking of which, there was a minor stir created on social media earlier this month questioning who was better between Malkin and Joe Pavelski. With all due respect to…