{"id":550875,"date":"2026-04-12T05:30:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550875\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T05:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:30:41","slug":"evgeni-malkin-plays-hallway-hockey-at-alex-ovechkins-house-after-traveling-for-capitals-penguins-game-in-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/550875\/","title":{"rendered":"Evgeni Malkin plays hallway hockey at Alex Ovechkin\u2019s house after traveling for Capitals-Penguins game in DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> and Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> matched up on Saturday afternoon in the first of back-to-back games against each other.<\/p>\n

Washington took the first of the two rivalry meetings on the road, 6-3, with many of Pittsburgh\u2019s key players sitting out due to day-to-day injuries<\/a>. One of those players was star Russian center Evgeni Malkin<\/a>, who we now know has traveled to DC for the two-game series finale, as shown in an Instagram Story posted by Nastya Ovechkina, Alex Ovechkin\u2019s<\/a> wife.<\/p>\n

In the video, Malkin is seen playing hallway hockey with Ovechkin\u2019s kids, Sergei and Ilya. Two other hockey-playing brothers, Aliaksei Protas<\/a> and Ilya Protas<\/a>, then arrive at the Ovechkin household to join the fun.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin hosting Malkin returns the favor from Friday night in Pittsburgh. Before the two teams became mutual combatants again, a large contingent of their Russian and Belarusian players met to break bread.<\/p>\n

The Capitals made the short trip up on Friday after practicing at home, allowing Ovechkin, the Protas siblings, and Ivan Miroshnichenko<\/a> to hang out with Malkin and Ilya Solovyov<\/a>. The cross-rivalry meeting was posted on Instagram by George Makricostas, a Greek national team player and marketing agent for Malkin and other Penguins players.<\/p>\n

Malkin has regularly hosted Capitals-Penguins hangouts over the years, most notably a dinner at his house in 2023 that brought in Ovechkin, the elder Protas, Alex Alexeyev, and Evgeny Kuznetsov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The veteran center has formed a great friendship with Ovechkin, his one-time bitter rival, which has particularly blossomed as the two have gotten older<\/a>. The two exchanged jerseys after a Caps-Pens game in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins matched up on Saturday afternoon in the first of back-to-back games against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[5],"class_list":{"0":"post-550875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116390095965105160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}