PITTSBURGH — On the night of Oct. 18, 2006, a standing room-only crowd at Mellon Arena buzzed ahead of one of the most anticipated debuts in Penguins history.

Those fervent fans ended up getting even more than they had bargained for.

Evgeni Malkin was the marquee attraction. A great curiosity since he sneaked out of Russia, he was set to make his NHL debut against the New Jersey Devils after missing the first four games of his rookie year with an injury.

The No. 2 overall pick in the 2004 NHL draft marched out of the tunnel last behind Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh’s 19-year-old superstar center. Crosby was coming off of a dynamite rookie campaign, during which he piled up 102 points.

A feisty, young defenseman also suited up for the Penguins that night, though Kris Letang played sparingly. He had just eight shifts in his fifth NHL game. At that point, it was unclear how much longer Letang would stick around.

Little did anyone in that building know that 20 years later, Crosby, Malkin and Letang would still be together with the Penguins — making them the longest-tenured trio in North American professional sports history.

“It’s pretty surreal,” Letang said. “That’s not something you script before we started. It just shows what kind of humans we became, being close together, being part of the same organization and having the same goal in mind.”

That Wednesday night at Mellon Arena was the first of 1,023 games together between the regular season and playoffs (heading into Friday's games). They have won three Stanley Cups and more regular-season games than any trio in NHL history.

This could be their final year together, with the Penguins giving Malkin a one-year deal that may be his last. If this is indeed the end of an era, what a ride it has been.

“It’s incredible,” said Chuck Fletcher, who was the Penguins’ assistant general manager at the time. “It just goes back to their passion for the game. They’re all competitive people. They all love to play hockey.”

Malkin takes flight

Malkin’s escape from his Russian team was straight out of a Cold War spy novel. He was embroiled in a contract dispute with Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who demanded he play one more year in his hometown before going to the NHL.

Malkin was ready to go. His agent, J.P. Barry, orchestrated a plan for him to slip away from the team in Helsinki, Finland. The top-secret plan succeeded, and Malkin jetted off to Los Angeles that August before heading to Pittsburgh.

It reminded Fletcher of Alexander Mogilny and other Soviet-era players who escaped when the country was under communist rule.

“You wouldn’t really think that would still be the case in the summer of 2006. But there were a lot of hurdles to get him out,” said Fletcher, now part of the Seattle Kraken’s front office.

He credited Malkin’s persistence for clearing those hurdles.

“Geno really wanted to come obviously,” Fletcher said. “ ... But it was literally cloak and dagger.”

His extraction from his Russian team wasn’t the only obstacle Malkin faced before his rookie year officially began. In his first exhibition game, the 20-year-old collided with teammate John LeClair and left the ice with a shoulder injury the Penguins feared would sideline him for months. Thankfully, Malkin missed only four games.

Once he debuted, it was immediately evident the Penguins had another superstar on their hands. By scoring in each of his first six games, Malkin set a modern-day NHL record on his way to 85 points and the Calder Trophy.

“We knew right away we would have two of the best center-ice men in the league for as long as they could play,” Fletcher said.

Ironically, if Malkin had needed a few more days to return from his injury, the Big Three’s first game together would have had to wait another year.

Letang beats the odds

Unlike Malkin and Crosby, Letang was hardly seen as an elite prospect or future franchise cornerstone. That night in October 2006, casual fans might have checked the game program whenever he took one of his occasional shifts.

The Penguins drafted Letang in the third round in 2005 — 61 picks after Crosby. More than 20 defensemen went off the board before Letang heard his name called.

“To a fault, as an industry, we value — or maybe overvalue — size, and Kris is not the tallest defenseman,” Fletcher said. “ ... He’s so strong and competitive, I don’t think anybody says he’s undersized anymore.”

Letang was not short on confidence, though. He was unbothered being around Pittsburgh’s ballyhooed prospects, who included Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Staal.

“It’s easy for me to say that drafts don’t matter, but it actually is the case,” Letang said. “ ... If you come in an environment and you let people walk on you, you’re already a step behind. So I just stepped on the ice, in our locker room, [and] I valued myself at the same level as everybody else.”

When Letang showed up to his second NHL training camp in 2006, Fletcher saw a “stallion.”

“Tanger was a wild card,” Fletcher said. “ ... He was all over the ice [that] training camp, and the skating, the competitiveness, the skill stood out. But a 19-year-old kid trying to acclimate to the NHL was a big challenge.”

Letang made the team out of camp and played their first seven games. But he quietly exited the stage during Malkin’s sizzling start. In late October, the Penguins sent Letang back to his junior team to continue his development.

While Letang “had a lot of work to do” defensively and “could be a little impulsive on the ice,” Fletcher said the Penguins front office already viewed the defenseman as part of their future core alongside Crosby, Malkin and others.

“He was very talented and competitive,” Fletcher said. “And he had the ‘it factor.’ ”

Crosby keeps ascending

So did Crosby. One of the most hyped prospects in NHL history, he had surpassed even those lofty expectations in his rookie year.

After Fletcher was hired by Pittsburgh before the 2006-07 season, he got to know the young phenom — and came away even more impressed.

“He was just so mature,” Fletcher said. “People gravitated toward him.”

Letang quickly saw why. They knew each other from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Once they were teammates, they bonded over their shared love of hockey, staying on the ice after practice and picking up new skills.

And Letang discovered Crosby wasn’t just a single-minded prodigy.

“When he’s outside of hockey and he can have a good time with the guys, he’s there and he’s making sure that everybody has a good time around him,” Letang said. “And he’ll invite a lot of guys to his house to feel comfortable, be part of the team. ... That’s the thing that surprises you most when you get to know him more.”

While Letang fought to stay on the roster, Crosby was in the early stages of possibly the best season of his career.

One of the few places he struggled as a rookie was the faceoff dot. So he worked tirelessly to improve in that area, and his percentage jumped in 2006-07.

“His work ethic on and off the ice was just incredible,” Fletcher said. “He was not entitled at all. He wanted to put the time in. He wanted to battle. He wanted to be better.”

And he was. Crosby finished his second season with a career-high 120 points, the Hart and Art Ross trophies and the Lester Pearson Award.

He became “literally the best player in the league at 19,” Fletcher said.

The ‘Big Three’ begins

Twenty years later, Crosby didn’t remember that Devils game was their first together.

“We wouldn’t have been probably thinking that we’d still all be here now,” Crosby said. “ ... Just hard to believe it’s been that long.”

It didn’t help that, outside of Malkin’s debut, it was a forgettable game. New Jersey netminder Martin Brodeur stymied the Penguins with 37 saves on 38 shots, including three stops on Crosby. The kid didn’t have a point.

But late in the second period, Malkin soared into the Devils’ zone with the puck and dropped it off to Mark Recchi, who fired it on net. Ryan Whitney tried to pop in the rebound. It looked like Brodeur had it covered. But Malkin saw rubber and poked the loose puck through Brodeur’s legs for his first NHL goal.

Malkin’s record start fueled a five-game winning streak for the Penguins. Even the front office wasn’t prepared for how quickly their young stars dragged them into contention. They had not built the 2006-07 roster with the postseason in mind.

“I’ll never forget that trade deadline. ... [GM] Ray [Shero] turned to me and said, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to make the playoffs. We don’t have an eighth defenseman. We don’t have a No. 3 goalie. We don’t have any depth,’ ” Fletcher recalled.

The Penguins lost to the Ottawa Senators in the first round. But the league was officially on notice.

A year later, Pittsburgh reached the Stanley Cup final. A year after that, the Big Three won their first championship.

And they’re still here.

Their three games together in October 2006 helped forge a bond that has lasted two decades.

“The three of us were young guys coming in all at the same time, trying to figure things out together,” Crosby said.

And at each turn since, Crosby, Malkin and Letang have chosen to stay together.

Through Crosby’s concussions, Letang’s strokes, Malkin’s knee injuries and more, they have each endured a lot to continue playing.

They might not have kept going, much less with the same organization, if not for that bond.

“We were able to help each other through that and have fun together, grow through some stuff together,” Crosby said. “You look at our careers separately, we’ve all had to be there for each other at different points.”

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