where did they find this fucking Quick guy?

“i see my son. he’s like shy and he’s like almost crying too. i think it was best thing in my life.”

and @icedbatik reminded me of this and why having nikita stand up there probably meant SO MUCH to geno

For all the physical gifts he’s displayed since he first put on a pair of hockey skates, for any of those times he beat big brother Denis in tennis matches, for those early NHL seasons when he won individual awards and those later ones marked by the highs of more Stanley Cups and lows of declining performance resulting from injuries, and for a “rough last year” when his future, along with that of his own young family, hung in the balance — through all of it, Malkin, a sure-bet future Hall of Famer and destined to be remembered as one of the greatest Russian hockey players, has suffered from confidence crises.

And now he sees those same doubts in his son, Nikita, who is shy around unfamiliar faces, who is trying to learn two languages while bouncing between Pittsburgh, Miami and Moscow, and who recently switched from hockey to soccer, a game his dad feels uncertain of how to help teach.

Nikita’s confidence is a concern to his parents. He’s a shy boy, trying to make friends while spending time in three very different cities and learning two very hard languages. On a return trip to their summer home in Moscow, Malkin noticed his son having difficulty fitting in and keeping up.

“When we go back to Moscow, it took him a week to adjust, longer to find friends, longer to talk with people,” Malkin said. “We come back to Miami, it’s the same thing — and in Pittsburgh, too. We talk to him, ask where he wants to be, because maybe Miami is a better city for him because (there are) so many Russians and he loves the ocean. It’s a hard choice because we notice he’s not always speaking English in class because he’s not knowing what words to use all the time.

“I want him to be, like, the most comfortable. I want him to be where it’s best for him.”