After beginning formal extension discussions late last month, the Penguins are close to keeping their franchise cornerstone in the mix for a few more years. Sources tell The Athletic’s Rob Rossi that Pittsburgh should formalize an extension for captain Sidney Crosby in the coming days. The three-time Stanley Cup champion could earn an AAV as high as $10MM on a three-year deal, Rossi indicated back in April.
Crosby, 37 next month, is coming off arguably his best season in quite some time. Over his 19 seasons in Pittsburgh, he’s passed the 40-goal mark three times – including last year. He placed top 10 in Hart Trophy voting for first time since 2021 and top 10 in Selke Trophy balloting as well for the first time since falling just short of being a finalist in 2019. He hasn’t hit the century mark in points since 2018-19, but he did still churn out 42 goals and 52 assists for 94 points while playing in all 82 games for the second straight season – the first time he’s done that – to lead the Pens in every offensive category by a wide margin.
The all-time great is entering the final season of a 12-year, $104.4MM extension signed immediately upon becoming eligible for one in 2012, a deal that’s seen him play the healthiest hockey of his career. The 5’11” pivot missed a good chunk of what would have been his prime seasons due to concussions, playing only 99 out of 212 regular season games between the 2010-11 and 2012-13 seasons. Since then, injuries have held him out for more than 10 games in a campaign only twice.
The sooner a deal gets signed, the sooner speculation quiets down that Crosby may finish his career anywhere else than Pittsburgh. That’s one of the primary reasons for getting an extension done early this summer, as a league and team source told Rossi that the pending deal is viewed as “a commitment to Pittsburgh” by both Crosby and the Pens’ front office, led by general manager Kyle Dubas.
A cap hit starting with a 10 would be the richest of Crosby’s career, which may seem puzzling as he ages, but it’s likely fair value considering their inability to frontload a new deal as they did with his previous extension, which only paid him $3MM in actual salary in each of the past two seasons and will do so again this year. It’s right in line with his market value, too – Evolving Hockey projects a three-year, $10.82MM AAV deal for Sid the Kid if he inks an extension this month. A full no-move clause, as he had for all 12 seasons of his previous deal, should be expected.
Crosby’s extension won’t quite fall under the same rules as a normal contract. He’ll be given a 35+ contract due to his age, which prevents the Pens from reducing his cap hit by giving him a signing bonus in the second or third season or otherwise front-loading the contract with salary.
Multi-year 35+ contracts aren’t all that common solely because of a player’s age, but they do happen. Former Stars defenseman Ryan Suter is a recent example, inking a four-year deal that was actually backloaded, paying him more salary in the last two years of the deal than in the first two years. That allowed the cap hit to be calculated as normal, equating to the actual average annual value of the contract ($3.65MM). It also allowed them to buy out Suter this offseason and actually receive a cap benefit from doing so. Expect Crosby’s deal to carry a similar backloaded structure or award him even compensation across all three years.
As for the Pens’ roster construction, getting cost certainty on a Crosby extension is imperative for Dubas as he attempts to retool on the fly and get Pittsburgh back to playoff contention in his captain’s final few seasons. They’ve missed the postseason for two years in a row, their first time missing the playoffs in the Crosby era since his 2005-06 rookie season.
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With Matthew Nieto expected to start 2024-25 on long-term injured reserve while he recovers from knee surgery, giving Dubas $4.42MM in cap space left to work with this summer – for now. While they’ve had some turnover among their depth defensemen and forwards, they’re expected to run it back with the same top-six forward group and top-four defenders that they ended 2023-24 with. The Penguins are hoping those additions, which include Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk and Kevin Hayes, are enough to make up the three-point gap that kept them out of a wild-card spot in the East last season.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
I’ve never really been able to get on board with K Hayes, but maybe playing with Sid will bring some extra shine out of him. Seems like there’s some potential for a little extra as a result of that relationship.
“Crosby, 37 next month, is coming off arguably his best season in quite some time.”
You don’t need the “in quite some time.”
It was his best season. Period. He was impactful in every single aspect of the game (minus PK, which is a coach’s choice) and far more dominant than even his 120 point season.
I would say 2009-10 was his best season. It was his only 50 goal season, he scored 20% of the team’s goals, had to deal with Malkin being hurt (28 goals in 67 games). Only 1 other player on the team outside him and Malkin even had 50 points (Gonchar – 50). He had his best faceoff % – now 2nd best behind last year. He carried most of the weight getting them 101 regular season points then to game 7 of the 2nd round. Last year, Crosby had more offensive help than he did in 2009-10.
I would say in terms of season versus age, yes, last year for age 36 was excellent. Right up there with Ovechkin’s age 36 season when he did 50-40-90 in 77 games in 2021-22.
His whole career has been great (minus a stretch under Mike Johnston, ugh) but I think I’m putting more emphasis on a complete game.
That team was better than last years’ and Sid was a 150 foot player back then whereas he was a 200 foot force last season.
If he killed penalties, I’d argue he should have been a Selke finalist. Possible winner.
He really has followed the Yzerman trajectory and become the total package.
Crosby was better as a young player defensively than Yzerman was…it took Yzerman probably until 1994 or 1995 to get it, and once he did, the Red Wings were the dominant team for several years. Of course, the system played in helped, Crosby was given defensive responsibilities from the get go while Yzerman came of age in the late 80s and early 90s when the top scorers were to play all out offense and let someone else worry about coming back on D…if you remember Mario Lemieux rarely crossed the red line coming back let alone the blue line, but once he started to the Penguins started making the playoffs (and to be fair to Mario, he had nothing to work with his first year or two so SOMEONE had to score all the goals!)