PITTSBURGH — Maybe it is time.
I never thought I’d write those words, because Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins are peanut butter and jelly. They’re peas and carrots. They’re a cold beer on a warm, spring night with the smell of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the air.
If anyone deserves to be a one-jersey guy, it’s Crosby. He’s the immaculate superstar in a city that knows all about immaculate sports moments. Crosby has spent more than half of his 38 years wearing Penguins jerseys, and he’s done so with the kind of dignity that we no longer see in professional sports.
He takes less money than he’s worth, for the good of the team. He frequently visits sick children at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and, unlike many athletes, doesn’t bring a phalanx of camerapersons with him. He’s a real-life superhero, a better person than he is a player. That’s a cliché, but you’ll have to trust me that it’s rooted in truth.
So, yes, Crosby has earned the right to play out his years in Pittsburgh, and no one here would ever complain about it, even if it drives Canada and Denver bonkers. Nor will anyone ever show him the door, because he’s very much bigger than the Penguins.
However, he has also earned the right to leave. And maybe he should.
Or, at the very least, he shouldn’t feel guilty if that is what he wants.
Trade speculation has swirled around Crosby for about five years now. Many NHL fans want to see Crosby moved because the Penguins aren’t performing well, but he remains exceptional. Some people get more excited about trades than they do about championship presentations. And players like Crosby rarely get traded. None of this matters, though. It’s all an invalid dream, the product of Penguins’ fatigue and a boring NHL offseason.
Everything changed on Tuesday, when Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, was extensively quoted by The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun about the legend’s future.
What matters now is that Brisson appears to want the Penguins’ captain to be traded. Either that, or he’s publicly pressuring Kyle Dubas to scrap the rebuild that Pittsburgh’s president of hockey operations and general manager has been orchestrating for about 18 months and to load up before Crosby retires. It’s one or the other, and that changes things.
Suddenly, it is a big deal. There was nothing subtle about it.
There is the potential of a beautifully, perfectly romantic conclusion in Pittsburgh. Sure, Crosby is 38, but no one has ever looked this good at 38. He can easily play for another half-decade, presumably at a high level.
By the end of those five years, as the narrative goes, Dubas will have surrounded Crosby with a young, talented roster. And you know what will happen when Crosby gets one final sniff of that Cup: It’ll feel like it did when he struck the gold-medal game overtime winner for Canada at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, or like when he fired that first backhand shot in 2011 after missing almost a year to a concussion, or like when he introduced the United States to the magic of outdoor hockey, the game on his stick in a shootout in Buffalo in 2008. It will feel preordained. His whole career has felt that way.
It’s nice to think about, isn’t it? Close your eyes and you can almost see it. Almost. It’s conceivable, if unlikely.
However, Brisson’s comments make it clear that Crosby’s camp isn’t too thrilled with the pace of Dubas’ rebuild. Or perhaps his camp doesn’t think Dubas should be rebuilding at all.
Dubas has complete power in Pittsburgh to rebuild the Penguins. It’s a daunting task that will take some time. I’d suggest that Crosby’s agent publicly pressuring him isn’t particularly fair. Dubas has a vision, and his job is to execute it.
That vision almost surely doesn’t include the Penguins winning anything this season, let alone qualifying for a playoff spot.
Crosby, for his part, hasn’t said that he wants to be traded. He’s been politically correct and unfailingly loyal to the Penguins, even if he’s quietly seething because missing out on the playoffs for three straight seasons is excruciating to a competitor of his ilk.
So what does it all mean?
I don’t think Crosby told Brisson to make those comments. What I do believe is that Brisson, who has known Crosby since the player was a boy, can sense the angst. And so he spoke out on behalf of his client. Just as Dubas works for the Penguins and not for Crosby, Brisson works for Crosby and not the Penguins. And those realities are the problem here.
Perhaps, for the first time, what is best for Crosby isn’t what is best for the Penguins, and vice versa.
There is no villain here. Dubas isn’t a bad guy for orchestrating a rebuild on his terms. It’s literally what his bosses hired him to do.
And Crosby isn’t a bad guy if he wants to leave, if he thinks playing on a better team would be a more enjoyable conclusion to his final seasons. Could you blame him? Have you seen the Penguins play the last few seasons? So what if he pushed for Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang to stay until the bitter end, so the three could go out together? His heart was in the right place. He didn’t know Malkin’s and Letang’s legs would give out long before his would.
Brisson, in his many insightful comments, noted that speculation about a Crosby trade will likely disappear if the Penguins have a great season and make the playoffs. Our sportsbook friends in Las Vegas give the Penguins around a 9 percent chance of qualifying for the postseason next spring. If you’ve been paying attention, you know it’s not going to happen.
Deep down, I suspect Crosby, Dubas and Brisson are all aware of this, too.
Until yesterday, I never thought a Crosby trade was imaginable, despite so many in the hockey industry seemingly willing it to happen.
Now, I’m not so sure. If Brisson is indeed speaking for his client, then there is reason to believe that Crosby’s frustration with the current state of the Penguins is at a boiling point.
The Penguins can’t afford to mess up this rebuild. Crosby can’t afford to screw up his endgame in Pittsburgh because losing a perfect game with two outs in the ninth wouldn’t be right, not for a man of his character.
Crosby possesses many admirable characteristics, and I assure you that his love for and loyalty to the Penguins — and to Pittsburgh — is high on the list. He always wants what is best for the city and its fans. Always.
Here’s what isn’t best: Dubas, feeling pressured by Crosby’s camp, scraps his current plan, turns aggressive, gives out some bad contracts and gives away some prospects; Crosby retires in a couple of years, and the Penguins find themselves in even worse shape in 2028 than they were in 2023. That’s the kind of scenario that should scare fans.
Dubas has to build the team in his vision. If Crosby is OK with that, then of course he should stay. He is the Penguins.
However, if he’s not OK with what Dubas is doing, he probably should depart, for his sake and for everyone else’s. Staying probably only makes things worse for both sides. What’s the point in that?
Should Crosby leave, there would be no villain in this story. It would merely be an imperfect but understandable conclusion to the greatest career in the history of Pittsburgh sports.
Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that. Hopefully, Crosby and Dubas can speak and come to an understanding, with Crosby’s legendary patience reaching even greater depths as he and the Penguins achieve their happy ending in a few years. What a story it would be.
Sometimes, though, practicality rules the day. The Penguins are years away from being winners. Maybe Crosby is closer to the end of his career than we realize. And perhaps he doesn’t want it to end like this.
One way or the other, the current mood doesn’t feel sustainable, and the Penguins can’t enter the season with this speculation hovering over their heads. It’s time for everyone involved to get on the same page. What Brisson said on Tuesday indicates strongly that this isn’t currently the case. This needs to change.
Both the Penguins’ rebuild and the perfect Crosby endgame depend on it.
(Photo of Sidney Crosby: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
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