Evgeni Malkin tips his hat to Patrick Kane in poll over who had the better career and then drops the mic

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Mike Armenti
July 24, 2023 (10:12)

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If you were doing a word association exercise and the names Evgeni Malkin and Patrick Kane came up, your answer might be "legends" or "elite" - at least something along those lines. Both have had legendary careers for their respective clubs and both are future Hall-of-Famers, without a doubt. Yesterday on Instagram, Bleacher Report's hockey page asked the question of who had the better career between the two. Malkin saw the post and humbly responded in the comments section by simply replying "'88".

Each of these two modern icons in their respective markets have 3 Stanley Cups under their belt. They each also own a Calder Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy, Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award. Malkin has one additional Art Ross Trophy, edging Kane in that category (2-1). Points-wise, however, Kane is slightly ahead of Geno, with 1,237 points in 1180 games - though Malkin's 1,090 points in 1,063 games is nothing to scoff at either.

When you break down their career point totals to points-per-game, they are nearly identical. Kane is only averaging .02 more points-per-game than Malkin over their careers. Kane is closing in on becoming the highest scoring American player of all time, trailing Brett Hull by only 154 points. At 34 years of age, there's still plenty of room for Kane to run away with it in that race.

Malkin is trailing only Alexander Ovechkin for highest scoring Russian NHLer of all time. Make no mistake about it, these are two of the very best players of this era and both have cases for being considering all-time greats.

For a player that has always thrived in the spotlight and always wanted it, for Malkin to say that Kane has had the better career is somewhat surprising. With Malkin, 36, and Kane, 34, their careers will be coming to an end, conceivably within the next 4 years, but as the saying goes, "greatness recognizes greatness" and it's great to see Malkin so humbly tipping his hat to another one of this era's superstars the way that he did. There's obviously a ton of respect between these two legends.