Evgeni Malkin was speaking in his second language, so sure, there were a few flaws in his syntax, a word or two transposed now and then.
There was, however, no mistaking the message Malkin delivered while speaking with reporters Thursday: He believes the Penguins are fully capable of winning Game 4 of their qualifying-round matchup with Montreal and distilling the series to a best-of-60-minutes Saturday.
With one rather large asterisk.
The Penguins, he said, can't play the way they did for a lot of their 4-3 come-from-ahead loss in Game 3 Wednesday if they hope to have a realistic chance of forcing a Game 5.