Sidney Crosby ‘optimistic’ about contract extension – and Penguins’ playoff chances

Credit: Apr 15, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby (87) waves to the crowd after being named first star of the game against the Nashville Predators at PPG Paints Arena. The Penguins won 4-2. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

LAS VEGAS – Over the past two decades, few things in hockey come as reliable as Sidney Crosby’s excellence. He and Wayne Gretzky are the only two NHL players ever to average a point per game in 19 consecutive seasons, and Crosby, 37, is a virtual shoo-in to stand alone at 20 after the 2024-25 season. He’s the sport’s classy, awe-shucks ambassador, modest off the ice and feverishly intense on it.

Addressing media Monday at the NHL’s North American Player Media Tour, he was that same trusty superstar, fresh off a 94-point season in which he finished in the top 10 of the Hart Trophy vote. You can still set your watch to Crosby…but the background noise in Pittsburgh feels different. Gone are the Penguins who made the playoffs in 16 consecutive seasons between season 2 and season 17 of his career. Now, the Pens have commenced a new streak, missing the playoffs two straight years. How foreign does it feel for Crosby? Well, he’s had to adjust the pacing of his summer training regimen thanks to starting his offseason in April, trying to make sure he doesn’t “hammer the gas and put extra miles on my body,” as he put it Monday. This is all relatively new territory for him.

Coming off a trying season in which the Pens watched their soul leave their collective body and trade his longtime linemate Jake Guentzel, Crosby is one of the only constants left in an organization synonymous with winning but no longer doing a lot of it. The fact he’s without a contract beyond this season, then, felt like less of a throwaway topic Monday than it normally would. He’s devoted to the franchise that drafted him first overall in 2005, but he’s also nearly peerless in the sport’s history in his desire to win. Is it still a foregone conclusion that he remains a Penguin for life?

Crosby addressed the topic head-on Monday and was quick to reassure anyone doubting his future with the franchise even one percent – or wondering if he may open the season without an extension in place.

“No, no, Crosby said, “I’m pretty optimistic it’s going to get done [before the season]. I don’t know what day specifically, but it’s been really positive. It hasn’t been a difficult process at all.”

Crosby still very much intends to be part of the long or, based on his age, at least the medium-term picture in Pittsburgh. But how competitive will that picture look in the coming years? The Penguins, punting their first-round picks and top prospects when they were winning Stanley Cups in the Jim Rutherford era, had gutted their farm system to the point they had very little help coming from within as their core aged. Their championships in 2016 and 2017 gave away to a second-round defeat in 2018, followed by four straight opening-round playoff eliminations between 2019 and 2022. After previous GM Ron Hextall had re-signed franchise legends Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang in summer 2022, incoming GM Kyle Dubas committed last summer to building a competitive veteran team around them. But whether it was Reilly Smith or Ryan Graves or Erik Karlsson, all the maneuvers weren’t enough to lift Pittsburgh back into the playoffs.

It’s obvious this franchise, currently the NHL’s second-oldest by average age, has been trending in the wrong direction for a while now. While Dubas earned universal praise for acquiring highly rated prospect Rutger McGroarty this offseason – a trade for which Crosby expressed his excitement Monday – the offseason has been largely stagnant in Pittsburgh. Their most noteworthy veteran additions include center Kevin Hayes and fallen prospect Cody Glass. Given the loaded New Jersey Devils are poised to bounce back from an injury-ravaged season and the Washington Capitals, who beat Pittsburgh out for the final Wildcard spot last spring, added a ton of impact veterans, it’s tough to see how the Penguins’ odds improved over the summer.

But Crosby doesn’t see it that way.

“Obviously we were pretty close the last couple of years, a point or two, two years in a row, which stings,” he said. “If you get that extra two points and you get in the playoffs, you’re feeling way different about it than if you come up short… Personally, the way I look at it is, if we can find some way to get over that hump and get into the playoffs where we haven’t, trying to use some of the momentum that we finished with last year would be great. We finished really strong. I think we all felt pretty good about hanging in there the way that we did.”

Post-Guentzel trade March 7, the Penguins did put up a respectable fight, going 10-7-4 the rest of the way. Michael Bunting was close to a point-per-game player after coming over from the Carolina Hurricanes in the deal. So maybe he keeps the momentum going. Maybe veteran stopgaps like Hayes and blueliner Matt Grzelcyk make meaningful contributions, maybe McGroarty is immediately ready to help as a top-six forward and maybe the Pens find something in reclamation project Glass.

If even one of those maybes turns out, the Pens’ fate could be different this season. They did only miss the playoffs by three points and had the 11^th best 5-on-5 expected goal differential in the NHL in 2023-24. They still have a constant in Crosby, who just recorded the second-most points in an age-36 season in NHL history, while Malkin and Letang continue to defy their ages as well.

But how many more years will Crosby stick it out if this team can’t stay competitive while he has good years left? It will be telling to see what the term ends up being on his next contract. Whatever the number is, will it take him to the end of his Hall of Fame career? He hasn’t made up his mind about how many more seasons he intends to play.

“It’s hard – you don’t really know the trajectory of everything and how you’re going to feel mentally, physically,” he said. “All you can do is really just each year evaluate it and go from there. But when you get to this point, you understand [the end] is more of a reality with every year you play. You just check in with that through the year or every year and evaluate it. So that’s how I look at it.

“But I feel really good. I’m as excited about going to training camp as I was my first year. So the passion and that sort of thing are all there. As long as that’s there, then you want to put in the work and do everything that it takes to be successful. And hopefully it can be at least a few more.”

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Sidney Crosby ‘optimistic’ about contract extension – and Penguins’ playoff chances

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