According to reports out of Russia on Saturday, Penguins top prospect Evgeni Malkin has left his team.
Malkin, who earlier this week restructured his contract with Metallurg Magnitogorsk from two years to one year, was training with his team in Finland. But Russian news agency Itar-Tass cited sources within the team saying that Malkin, 20, had disappeared.
"Malkin secretly left the club, taking his belongings and his passport," Reuters news agency reported.
Agent Pat Brisson, who along with J.P. Barry was re-hired by Malkin last weekend after being fired in June, said via e-mail the neither he nor Barry would have any comment. The Penguins have not commented on the situation since it took its first dramatic twist a week and a half ago.
That was when both the NHL and the Russian Ice Hockey Federation announced that there would be no new transfer agreement allowing Russian players with current contracts to leave for the NHL despite months-long reports that a deal was nearly official. That same day, Don Meehan, who was representing Malkin at the time, said that the Penguins top pick in 2004 (No. 2 overall) had exercised a right under Russian labor law to give his employer two weeks' written notice that he was leaving.
But two days later, Malkin fired Meehan and returned to Brisson and Barry, and several days after that re-worked his contract with Magnitogorsk. At some point during that time, he also called Penguins defenseman and fellow Russian Sergei Gonchar, with whom Malkin was going to live this year, and told him that he was no longer planning to play for the Penguins this season but was instead going to remain in Russia.
Gonchar said that Malkin hadn't given a reason why.
All the while, Brisson and Barry maintained that Malkin still wanted to play for the Penguins, and that they were exploring ways to make that happen.
The Penguins have been counting on Malkin joining them this year. The phenom is a superstar in his country, and the main reason why the Russians ultimately refused to enter into a new transfer deal.
The report did not confirm whether Malkin was attempting to defect. The last time a prominent Russian player defected was in 1989, when Alexander Mogilny left his Russian team after the World Junior Championship in Sweden and came to the NHL to play for the Buffalo Sabres.
Malkin is from Magnitogorsk and has family and business interests there. A Russian newspaper reported several days ago that the young star opened a prison-themed restaurant in town and was planning to open more across the country.
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