Malkin was viewed as a somewhat legitimate challenger to Ovi. There is a fairly strong argument in any draft between like 1999 and 2003 he would have gone first overall. He was just a late riser due to being a bit young for his draft class and playing outside of the big Russian hot beds of St. Petersburg and Moscow.No closer to Malkin. I don't think Malkin ever got as much hype as Wright did.
But, peak Wright hype got out of control. All that really matters in this context is how they were viewed at their draft date. If we want to talk about prior to the draft hype at one point Jake Wise and Joe Veleno were viewed as the top 2 picks for 2018, and guys like Ho-Sang and John McFarland had first overall hype. Hell, outside of Crosby you could say Angelo Esposito at peak hype had the most hype of Malkin and Staal.