#(for posterity)

who's who?

Arseni Gritsyuk (#81, njd)

- exciteable joyfull pitbull with ambitions of content creation, which is to say that he is a nosey social butterfly

- expressive, enthusiastic, passionate

- obvious potential, slow development, has spent a lot of time in the limbo of feeling like people are not letting him prove himself as a player (with the happy ending in the form of him first dominating in the khl when he finally got ice time and now finally getting to the nhl this year)

- he also has an olympics silver from 22 (and scored the game winner in the shootout in the semifinal)

Egor Chinakhov (#59, pitt, previously cbj torture nexus)

- general attitude of a buddhist monk. in a sense that he has accepted that desire is the root of all suffering and seeks to purge himself of it. however this is an assessment based on media done when he was in columbus so it may just be the natural reaction to being in ohio

- quiet, calm, dry humor, doesn't volunteer information. however, when he does speak it becomes obvious that he is downright sentimental

- got to the nhl immediately after winning the cup with omsk

- exceptional wrist shot, much quicker development than grits, in general seems to be less sensitive about failure, because of the aforementioned buddhist monk attitude

their general dynamic is... well. this is not black cat/golden retriever. this is an exciteable pitbull/some sort of phlegmatic bird. they have been friends for a long, long time, and chino seems to be the keeper of all of grits' most embarrassing moments and stories (to the dismay of grits, who is adamant that he has never done anything wrong, ever, and if he did it was a long time ago and EGOR DON'T SAY ANYTHING). grits is the more animated of the two, and revealing his emotions comes easier to him than to egor, who tends to keep things closer to his chest. they clearly just really like hanging out together with their stupid thing 1 and thing 2 routine. their introduction to their joined 2 parter podcast was "this is arseni gritsyuk, and this is his best friend - just friend :) - egor chinakhov"

both came up in the avangard omsk development program together, which means that they played with each other since they were actual children. and they've been friends throughout. and of course they were linemates.

went through the whole gamut together: juniors, worlds, minor leagues, and were both recent call-ups in the cup run for omsk in 2021, which they fucking Won. had parallel but wildly different relationship arcs with bob hartley (who coached avangard at the time) with chino having a transcendent and calm experience of humbly surrendering to the will of the tides and hartley's authority (with the result of hartley asserting that egor should decide what line he plays on, Actually) and grits in contrast confidently stating that he should play in the top 5 and accidentally trapping himself in a whiplash remake with bob hartley. which btw culminated in grits stomping out the competition, getting on the olympic roster, and then leaving omsk in free agency to play for ska.

their paths have diverged after omsk won the cup in 21, with chino going to the nhl to suffer in ohio, and grits going into his shonen arc through the khl. (still keeping in touch and meeting up in the summer. of course)

miscellaneous:

- an important thing to understand about chinakhov in columbus is that avangard omsk 20-21 was haunting him like a dead wife. in the podcast I am basing all this off of, which is from uhhh I want to say 2024, he talks a lot about the nhl lacking the soul and team spirit khl did. ("in the nhl it's all just... business. there's no connection"). he misses team bonding. he feels disconnected from the team. this man is missing the power of love. which is one of the factors that led to him being traded to pittsburgh (besides everything else).

- grits has apparently spent a lot of time trying to weedle out of egor what the nhl is like and how it is different from the khl. to no avail. because egor has just always said that it's "just different"

- when grits came over to america egor hosted him for dinner

- when they were at one of their junior tourneys during covid they weren't allowed to leave their hotel rooms outside of training. apparently, "some guys would just spend the entire day on call with each other". I Know What You Are

- grits in new jersey is busy being apparently instantly beloved by the lockerroom And taking pics of nico hischier in various states of undress. hashtag influencer