Do the Penguins have one more run in them?
Our long-suffering nightmare is over.
Sidney Crosby finally put pen to paper on Monday, ending a months-long contract extension saga and recommitting (what is likely) the rest of his professional playing career to the team that drafted him first overall in 2005.
The focus for the hardwired Crosby now shifts to the ice, as he is getting ready to enter his 20th training camp with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Crosby, like most dominant professional athletes, is fueled by winning. He has taken the famous “hometown discount” in the name of winning (or hopefully using that extra money that would have gone to him to field a more competitive team around him).
The second part of that sentence now falls on the shoulders of general manager Kyle Dubas.
“I just think winning is the most important thing to me, and I think understanding the dynamic and how it works and trying to give the team the best possible chance to be successful,” Crosby said. “Ultimately, you got to go out there and do your best and do your job. So, I think I’m more focused on that than the number, I guess. But yeah, that’s just something where that’s my approach, and that’s kind of always how I’ve seen it.”
With the money Crosby has forfeited, will Dubas, who has been focused on stockpiling draft capital this off-season save for the surprising Rutger McGroarty acquisition, allow the Penguins to make, perhaps, one more deep run in these twilight years?
No offense to Blake Lizotte, Matt Grzelcyk, and other names who have signed in Pittsburgh over the summer months, but the Penguins’ lineup on paper hardly screams “Eastern Conference contender.”
Dubas, publically and privately in meetings with Crosby, has said he intends to build the Penguins up to be a Stanley Cup favorite while Crosby remains an active player, something that No. 87 took reassurance in hearing.
“I think that’s something for the time that I’ve been there, that’s been the case,” Crosby said. “I feel like as players, for all the different guys that have played here over the course of the time that I’ve been here, it’s something that you build as a culture. I think it’s something that’s ingrained. And missing the playoffs for a couple of years, not being in it is difficult. You want to try to find every way possible to get back in there and make sure that we compete for the Stanley Cup. I love that the expectation’s to win. I think it gets the best out of everybody, it pushes us to be better. I think it’s an important element. So, I think all those things combined just make me think that way.”
With Crosby and Kris Letang at 37 and Evgeni Malkin at 38, age is not on their side in what has increasingly become a young man’s game.
Let’s say, hypothetically, Crosby retires at the end of this extension following the 2026-27 season. The “all in” year doesn’t look like it’ll be this season, leaving 2025-26 and 2026-27 as all that’s left in this scenario. Malkin’s contract expires at the end of the 2025-26 season, and while no evidence has been presented, one could make an educated guess that Malkin will retire at the end of that deal or at least end his NHL career.
The salary cap will again be in their favor during the 2025-26 campaign; the team currently has an estimated $24 million at their disposal. That may be the target for the Penguins to push all their chips in for one last, true crack at Lord Stanley for Sidney Crosby and Friends.
“It’s been really special, and we’ve had some incredible experiences and memories. So, just want to continue that, basically. I think that having the opportunity to play with (Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang) this long, which is pretty rare, [and] being part of an organization like this for as long as I have has been really special. So, just happy to be able to continue it.”
