CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Sidney Crosby\u2019s early days in the NHL, when every Pittsburgh Penguins training camp felt like a proving ground, are never far from his mind, particularly this time of year.<\/p>\n
The early days have been gone for a while now. Yet there the Penguins\u2019 captain was on Thursday, a month removed from his 38th birthday and with a not insignificant number of flecks of gray sprinkled in his hair, still finding a way to smile while bending over his stick following a series of laps at the end of the first practice of his 21st season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s important to have that enthusiasm,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cI remember being that guy, you know, and I hope I\u2019m still somewhat that guy even though I\u2019ve been around for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question that Crosby and his team can\u2019t seem to escape, however, is for how much longer?<\/p>\n
A lingering question<\/p>\n
The future Hall of Famer and three-time Stanley Cup champion is under contract through next season and is adamant he has no intention of leaving the only NHL city he\u2019s ever known, even with the Penguins in the midst of a rebuild that general manager Kyle Dubas refuses to put a specific timeline on.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh hasn\u2019t reached the postseason since 2022 and hasn\u2019t won a playoff series since 2018. Expectations, externally anyway, remain low following a summer that was relatively quiet outside of the club hiring Dan Muse to replace longtime head coach Mike Sullivan, who now holds the same job with the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n
Crosby, who has averaged at least a point a game in an NHL record 20 seasons, freely admits that watching the chase for the Stanley Cup go on without the Penguins remains difficult.<\/p>\n
And while he has grown tired of constantly saying he has no plans to leave Pittsburgh, Crosby\u2019s longtime agent, Pat Brisson, raised eyebrows recently when he told The Athletic that Crosby\u2019s goal is to win \u201canother Stanley Cup or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the Penguins\u2019 current state \u2014 only the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks have longer odds to win a championship, according to BetMGM Spoortsbook \u2014 that seems unlikely to happen this season. And maybe the next one, too, after which Crosby\u2019s current deal expires.<\/p>\n
Yet Dubas reiterated Thursday his goal remains to construct a team that returns the Penguins to where they were during the 2010s, when Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Co. were annually a threat to raise the Cup. Dubas has no plans to abandon that strategy by acquiring veteran players in hopes of merely sneaking into the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a friend … they\u2019ll often say that shortcuts cut long runs short,\u201d Dubas said, who later added, \u201cwe can\u2019t alter the course that we\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staying the course<\/p>\n
And Crosby remains a vital part of that course, though there have been more than a few bends in the road since Dubas took over in the summer of 2023, the latest being the decision to move on from Sullivan after nearly 10 years and a pair of titles.<\/p>\n
Enter Muse, a former NCAA Division III grinder whose ability to develop young talent helped him land his first head coaching job. Now the 43-year-old finds himself overseeing a team that\u2019s a mixture of franchise icons like Crosby, Malkin and Kris Letang and relative newcomers, some of whom weren\u2019t even in elementary school when the trio first shared the ice nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n
It can be a tricky balancing act, though Dubas reiterated his belief that Muse is the right man to help the Penguins finish the transition from one era to the next. The plan is to have more than a little overlap.<\/p>\n
While Dubas has repeatedly refused to put any sort of specific date on when Pittsburgh\u2019s retooling will be complete, he is confident it will be while Crosby remains one of the NHL\u2019s best players, a testament to the player\u2019s inherent and notorious work ethic as much as it is Dubas\u2019 belief in his own ability to put together a championship roster.<\/p>\n
In that way, Dubas sees similarities between Crosby and former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, who remained prolific into his mid-40s.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Sid) is a player that, if he plays until that age and at that level, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cHe would downplay it. But I don\u2019t think anybody else would be surprised if, years from now, he\u2019s still playing at an elite level. No one puts into it more than he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Same as it ever was<\/p>\n
Crosby\u2019s commitment appears not to have waned in the slightest. The same goes for the notorious competitive streak that has fueled him since he was a prodigy growing up in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n
His only nod to Pittsburgh\u2019s shift in building toward the future is pointing out with a smile that the Penguins have considerable salary cap space this season, a rarity during the club\u2019s Cup-winning days in the 2010s when ownership would spend every dime available in pursuit of glory.<\/p>\n
Crosby is well aware that not much is expected of a team that currently has far more questions than answers. He can\u2019t control that. What he can control is how he prepares, how he plays and how he leads.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s encouraged by his early interactions with Muse and the familiar jolt of adrenaline that hit him when he skated onto the ice Thursday. He knows he has far more seasons behind him than ahead of him. He\u2019s trying to appreciate the time he has left, at least when he\u2019s not gasping for breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t be all reflective and think about that when you\u2019re skating laps in training camp,\u201d he said. \u201cTraining camp\u2019s always an awesome time of year because everyone\u2019s so happy to be back together and, you know, a fresh start. I don\u2019t think that changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n
Will Graves, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Sidney Crosby\u2019s early days in the NHL, when every Pittsburgh Penguins training camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-153267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}