Morning Pens Buzz: Malkin intends to start playing with Metallurg immediately

MORNING PENS BUZZ

Star center Evgeni Malkin won’t be wasting anytime to join Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL. Once the expected lockout becomes official at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Malkin will be joining Magnitogorsk as early as this weekend. Malkin who is due to make $9 million this season, will make around $5.85 million with Magnitogorsk if he were to play the whole season, a league source says.

The source says that Malkin’s $5.85 million salary is the max allowed to be paid based on his $9 million NHL salary for 2012-2013, per the guidelines put in place for locked out NHL players.

Malkin will be joined by best friend Sergei Gonchar as the agent for both players orchestrated a combo deal. The KHL released a statement this week saying that “only top-level foreign players can come to play in the Kontinental Hockey League,”. The league must still consider Sergei Gonchar a top level player.

According to the KHL, KHL rosters would be allowed to have six foreign-born players per club, with a limit of five foreign players named in the roster for each game.

Sidney Crosby is being pursued by clubs in Europe with multi-million dollar numbers being thrown around but getting insurance could lead to him staying on the sidelines for a while. It’s going to be extremely expensive for Crosby to get insured.