You’re Ilya Kovalchuk and you can get away with practically anything. Only 18 years old, you’ve been crowned the NHL’s next great player. The world gawks at your ability and winks at your flaws. So what if a hockey rink is your reflecting pool -- a place for you to preen and pump your fists and behold your own perfection. At the NHL Young Stars game, you hover at center ice and watch the other players fight in the corner like pigeons. Eventually the puck comes to you. It always does when you’re this good. You skate in on your off-hand side, pick a farside target the size of a ruble and fire a top-shelf screamer over helplessly outgunned Dan Blackburn. Over on the bench, coach-for-the-day Barry Melrose sees what you’ve just pulled off and says, “Holy s—.”

Pump those fists, Ilya. You’re having a blast. You score six goals that day, and you don’t give a rookie “aw shucks” afterward. You say, “I didn’t take the game that seriously. I showed only what I wanted to show.”

Maybe it’s six goals in an All-Star exhibition, or 28 goals in your first 59 NHL games, or nine shots and an unassisted tally in your first Olympic contest. You can shoot like a sniper and at 6'1", 220 pounds, you can check like a Zamboni. Props roll in like movie hype, and even with your limited English you get the gist: “Awesome!” says Melrose. “Unbelievable!” says fellow rookie teammate Dany Heatley. “A player like that comes once in a hundred years!” says Team Russia assistant GM Igor Kuperman. “A superstar!” says Atlanta GM Don Waddell. And on and on.

Big deal if you don’t do defense, and if your teammates applauded the first time you passed the puck, and if you had seven goals before you had one assist. So what if infuriated opponents like Edmonton’s Shawn Horcoff call you “an idiot.” Arrogant? Cocky? “Yeah, probably,” says your coach, Curt Fraser. But you’re Pavel Bure with size, Sergei Fedorov with grit, Alexei Yashin with fire. Boy, you’re fun to watch. And though you know the names of the hockey gods you’re already being grouped with -- Forsberg, Lemieux, even Rocket Richard -- you compare yourself to only one.

When you were a little boy growing up in Tver on the banks of the Volga River, your dad, Valery, told you about the great Valeri Kharlamov. Dad said Kharlamov was strong, quick, brilliant. He said Kharlamov wore No. 17 for the unstoppable Soviet teams of the 1970s, won two Olympic gold medals and scored a record 89 goals and 106 assists in World Championship play alone. You vowed to wear No. 17 to honor him.

Dad also told you about Kharlamov’s strict Red Army general of a coach -- Viktor Tikhonov. Kharlamov and his teammates learned how to play perfect pass-and-defend hockey from Tikhonov. The coach even decided what car his players could drive and where. You remember the story Dad told about Kharlamov asking his coach if he could get his car fixed. Tikhonov refused. Kharlamov, full of spite, continued to drive the faulty car until one day, in 1981, the car crashed and he was killed.

You learned all about Russian hockey on those two-hour car rides to Moscow for games. And when Dad launched into stories about how hard life used to be under Soviet totalitarianism, you turned to him and said, “You must be kidding.”

You know little about life in a Communist society. You drive a souped-up BMW SUV wherever you want, whenever you please. You live by yourself in a three-bedroom condo in the hippest part of Atlanta, though you’re three years too young to get into the bars. You eat sushi almost every day, wear designer clothes and rarely separate your cell phone from your ear. You have everything your idol always wanted.

And all you had to show was pleasure at your perfection. You joined star factory Spartak at age 16 and wowed all who saw you. International crowds marveled at your energy and your flare, as if they had never seen a Russian play so free. They snickered at the World Junior Championships in Moscow, when you broke in alone on Team Canada’s empty net and took a hand off your stick to pump your fist before flipping the puck home. When a reporter asked if you regretted riling an entire nation, you lifted an eyebrow and said, “I don’t play for Canada.” Then someone asked about Canada’s Jason Spezza, regarded as the second-best ’01 draft prospect. You said, “I think his skating is not very good.” And though you were representing a nation where fighting is punished by ejection, you went on to start a brawl with Switzerland by elbowing players sitting on the bench.

Thrashers GM Don Waddell called winning the right to pick you first in the draft “the most important thing that’s happened to our franchise.” A dozen teams wanted you, including one that offered four players and a first-round pick. But your future GM wanted you. And you told him you knew what the Calder Trophy was, and that you were going to win it. Waddell made you the first Russian ever selected No. 1 overall. When a reporter asked if you could play in the NHL right away, you said, “Of course.”

You knew. You shared Rookie of the Month honors in December with Heatley, then won the award outright with 10 goals in 15 games in January. In lowly Atlanta, that made you untouchable. So what if the first half of the season, you carried a stick with a blade curved like a banana. Your team captain, Ray Ferraro, told you over and over again to switch to a legal blade, but you just flashed a they’ll-never-catch-me smile. Then you had the audacity to bring your illegal blade to All-Star Weekend in L.A. and rack it next to your competitors’ legal sticks. In an NHL game the following week, the Oilers complained to the officials about your stick. The ref measured the blade and threw it out of play. You grabbed teammate Shean Donovan’s stick and promptly scored with it. Then you skated over to the Edmonton bench and yelled, “Is this stick okay?” You saw your opponents’ eyes flare in rage. Edmonton head coach Craig MacTavish said you’re “going to learn what goes around comes around.” You sneered, “They should be playing hockey, not measuring sticks.”

You can get away with being the last player on the bus. You can extend your shift without permission. You can sport an unsightly minus-12. It’s not like you’re killing your team. Atlanta has given up 210 goals this season -- 24 more than any other team in the league. The Thrashers have 15 wins -- fewest in the NHL. And you’re only 18. “He’s having fun,” says 21-year-old linemate Heatley. “When you’re a scorer, you give up a little D.”

Team Russia picked you for the Olympics and put you on the top line with snipers Sergei Fedorov and Sergei Samsonov. In your first-ever Olympic game, against Belarus, you scored a goal and an assist. The whole world was watching.

Then your Russian team faced the Czech Republic in the first elimination game of the Olympics medal round. You entered the last period of play leading 1-0. That’s when the Czechs turned it on, sending waves of attackers at your goalie, Nik Khabibulin. You were caught playing defense as Czech forward Martin Havlat picked up the puck and entered the zone. You didn’t even offer a poke check. You just watched Havlat fly by and skate in for a clean shot on goal. Then, in the game’s last minute, the Czechs pulled goaltender Dominik Hasek and furiously bombarded your net. A shot rang in from the high slot. Khabibulin made another stunning save. The rebound lingered precariously in the crease. Every skater joined the fight for the puck -- except you. You stood five feet away from the chaotic scrum, taking it all in. Khabibulin finally covered the puck with four seconds left. The whistle blew. Then, slowly, you lurched toward the pile. You scanned your opponents and then focused on one -- Havlat. You squared yourself to him, and then you punched him in the face.

Your team won and you showered and dressed and walked into a concourse full of dark-haired Russian players in red ski jackets and china-doll women in mink coats. Your dad spotted you, grinned hard and hugged you so strong your feet left the ground. A reporter asked you about the end-of-game punch, which got you a 10-minute misconduct. Your dad answered for you, saying: “It’s not his problem. It’s okay with me.”

It’s okay with everyone -- for now. But what happens when opposing teams put two or three guys on you? What if the Thrashers don’t improve? Will your act wear thin? Like you, most of today’s superstars came into the league as big goal-scorers on bad teams -- Modano, Yzerman, Sakic. Like you, they tickled scouts and coaches and GMs and teammates with end-to-end rushes and sweet dekes. But those who won championships all ended up fitting into a team-first system. They didn’t get away with it for long.

The great Valeri Kharlamov learned a discipline you can’t even imagine. It was hell. It hasn’t occurred to you that in order to be the greatest ever, you may need the one thing Kharlamov died despising: discipline. Everyone tells you it will come with age. For now, you show what you want to show.

The biggest game of your career was the Olympic semifinal. Team Russia met Team USA for the chance to play for its first gold medal since you were 8 years old. You tried three times to take on a wall of four U.S. defenders at the blue line by yourself, instead of passing or dumping it in. Your team fell behind 3-0. In the third period, head coach Slava Fetisov pulled you off the top line. The rally fell short.

So you watched the gold medal match from Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grill in the Salt Lake City International Airport. You and your assistant agent, Andrei Belmatch, walked in early and grabbed a booth. Andrei went to the bar, bought a beer and gave it to you. Then he returned to the table and ordered a Michelob for himself. The waitress asked only Andrei, in his early 30s, for ID. So you and Andrei drank and ate wings and watched the Canadians take it to Team USA. The waitress hustled to serve the customers around you. At one point, it occurred to her that you seemed a little young to be drinking. But before she could return to get a closer look, you and Andrei had already paid -- and left.

You’re Ilya Kovalchuk and you can get away with practically anything.

This article appears in the March 18 issue of ESPN The Magazine.