Poll: What Will Crosby’s Next Contract Look Like?
Although the Pittsburgh Penguins have experienced major disappointment over the last two years by failing to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, nobody is blaming Sidney Crosby. He has arguably been one of the more underrated players over the last couple of seasons by securing back-to-back 90+ point totals without having much of a supporting cast.
By nearly willing his team to the playoffs and being the organization’s lifeblood, one of the major talking points surrounding the Penguins is Crosby’s upcoming extension. There was some speculation that Crosby would sign yesterday on his birthday but ultimately that never came to fruition.
He’s surely set to increase his $8.7MM salary from the last 11 years but how much higher will he go? Will he look to get the money he has earned or take a hometown discount so that Pittsburgh has the flexibility to upgrade the players around him?
Evolving Hockey currently projects Crosby to land a three-year extension worth an AAV of $10.8MM. Given his inherent value to the organization, Crosby should easily be able to land a similar salary if not more. Given that his longevity in the league is becoming more and more apparent with each passing year, Crosby could reasonably ask for a five-year, $60MM contract from the only team he’s ever played for.
Nevertheless, regardless of what he has earned, the main question still stands. Will Crosby look for a high-salary deal to get the payday he has earned for so many years, or take another hometown discount so the Penguins are better set up for success?
Former Penguins Prospect Colin Swoyer Signs In ECHL
Scott Billeck of The Winnipeg Sun writes that he doesn’t believe the Winnipeg Jets will pursue a reunion with former Jet Patrik Laine. Billeck cites the Jets’ lack of cap space and poor fit as the reasons Winnipeg would pass on the former 2016 second-overall pick. The Jets would need to move out money to acquire the Columbus Blue Jackets forward, even if Columbus retained half of Laine’s cap hit (something they are hesitant to do).
Winnipeg currently has Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Gabriel Vilardi, Nikolaj Ehlers, Brad Lambert and possibly Vladislav Namestnikov slated to play in their top six, and new head coach Scott Arniel reportedly would like to add Cole Perfetti into the mix as well, further crowding the top two lines. The Jets could move Ehlers out via trade given his contract situation and hesitancy to sign long-term, but he could provide a lot more value to Winnipeg if the new coaching staff can deploy him properly.
In other morning notes:
- Detroit Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde plans to increase the leadership roles of youngsters Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond next season (as per Helene St. James of Detroit Free Press). Lalonde adds that he isn’t worried about the ongoing contract negotiations between the team and the two franchise cornerstones saying that whenever they have spoken this summer, they have not discussed the contract situation. Detroit has used a rotating leadership group the past couple of seasons, relying solely on veterans to fill the assistant captain roles. But with the Red Wings ready to take the next step, it appears they are also ready to allow their younger stars to have a bigger role in the leadership of the team.
- The Toledo Walleye of the ECHL announced that they’ve signed former Pittsburgh Penguins defensive prospect Colin Swoyer for the 2024-25 season. The 26-year-old joined the Penguins organization on an amateur tryout in March 2022 and eventually signed an ELC. He played 45 AHL games over parts of three seasons and spent the majority of last season with the South Carolina Stingrays, registering two goals and five assists in 40 games. During his AHL career, Swoyer has split time between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Hershey, tallying a goal and 13 assists.
Penguins Notes: Crosby, Malkin, Werner
Sidney Crosby’s 37th birthday came and went without a contract extension, which was always the plan according to Rob Rossi of The Athletic. Many believed Crosby would be extended on August 7th due to his superstitious nature, however, the 19-year veteran remains without a contract past next season.
Rossi’s league sources have informed him that the Penguins and Crosby remain on the same page when it comes to his new deal and the team is confident that they will reach a new agreement. Rossi also notes that Crosby has reportedly told those close to him that he plans to re-sign with Pittsburgh and that his priority this summer has been on his training for next season.
In other Penguins notes:
- Rossi also squashed a rumor from earlier in the week that Penguins center Evgeni Malkin intended to retire from the NHL after next season and forgo the last year of his four-year contract. Malkin told Rossi that he hasn’t given any thought to retiring a year early and intends to play out the final two years of his contract. The 38-year-old is coming off the worst offensive season of his 18-year career but spent most of last year saddled with replacement-level wingers. Malkin managed to dress in all 82 regular season games for the second consecutive season and posted 27 goals and 40 assists while averaging 18:35 of ice time per game.
- Teddy Werner will move into Dave Beeston’s role with the Penguins as alternate governor after Beeston’s departure from the Fenway Sports Group (as per Rossi). Beeston’s exit left the Penguins without a liaison to their ownership group and the senior vice president for Fenway Sports Management will fill in the role that had been occupied by Beeston for the past two years. Werner is the son of FSG chairman Tom Werner and has previously worked in Major League Baseball with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Snapshots: Cotter, World Juniors, Murashov
The Devils were looking for some more size and speed in their bottom six when they gave up former top-10 pick Alexander Holtz in a trade with the Golden Knights to acquire Paul Cotter, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told James Nichols of New Jersey Hockey Now.
“For us today and what we wanted to accomplish, adding a guy like Paul Cotter, who we believe has upside and has a little bit of Miles Wood in him. He can skate and is physical,” Fitzgerald said. It’s easy to see the comparable drawn between the current and former Devil – both have 6’2″ frames and above-average straight-line speed. Cotter checks in nearly 20 lbs heavier than Wood, who left New Jersey in free agency in 2023 to sign a long-term contract with the Avalanche.
The 24-year-old played 138 NHL games over the last three seasons with Vegas before the trade, scoring 22 goals and 23 assists for 45 points while averaging 12:44 per game. He finished second on the Knights with 233 hits last year, which would have led the Devils by a long shot – Curtis Lazar was their leader with 179.
More from around the hockey world today:
- Before NHLers return to the international stage at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off in February, the world’s top U-20 talents will convene again for the World Juniors in December and January. This season’s edition is in Ottawa, and well in advance of the event, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, Corey Pronman and Max Bultman took a crack at projecting what rosters may look like for the four traditional powerhouses.
- After signing his entry-level contract last week, Penguins goalie prospect Sergei Murashov is ready for the jump to North America, he tells Daria Tuboltseva of Responsible Gambling. The 20-year-old is hoping for a chance at NHL action this season, but he’s “ready to spend an entire season in the AHL.” “We’ll see how it goes,” Murashov continued. “It’s a new challenge for me. The Penguins’ coaches have told me about the specific aspects of playing in the AHL.” A 2022 fourth-round pick, Murashov has been one of the best goalies in the Russian junior circuit the past three seasons and had a .930 SV% and 24-4-2 record in 30 appearances with Loko Yaroslavl last season. In a six-game Kontinental Hockey League call-up to Lokomotiv, he continued his strong play with a .925 SV%, 1.84 GAA and his first professional shutout.
Latest On Sidney Crosby Contract Negotiations
Most teams don’t have franchise-defining moments in the first week of August, but as Jason Mackey of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, that could happen to the Pittsburgh Penguins tomorrow. August 7th is Sidney Crosby’s 37th birthday and Mackey wonders if it might be the day that Crosby signs his long-awaited contract extension with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Crosby has been notoriously superstitious throughout his career when it comes to the number 87, carrying an $8.7MM cap hit since the 2008-09 season and wearing number 87 for his entire career. Many in Pittsburgh believe he will sign a new deal tomorrow on 8/7, but it’s fair to wonder what will happen to the team if he doesn’t.
Rob Rossi of The Athletic wrote last week that both sides left negotiations in July feeling comfortable enough that a deal was close and cited sources on both sides of the talks. By all accounts, a deal seems to be close, but as the summer drags on, Penguins fans are becoming more uncomfortable with the extended timeline, and as Mackey points out, tomorrow passing without a contract announcement will surely put fans into panic mode.
Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now writes that there are no updates from his sources on negotiations, but also takes a balanced approach to breaking down the situation. Noting Crosby’s desire to wear one jersey for his entire career as his mentor Mario Lemieux once did for these very same Penguins. Crosby’s childhood hero Steve Yzerman also only wore one NHL jersey, and Crosby has always stated publicly that it means a lot to him to do the same.
Mark Madden of 105.9 The X and TribLive believes Crosby will sign, but he asked the question this week that many Penguins fans are scared to answer. What if Crosby doesn’t sign an extension tomorrow? It would be a scary reality for Penguins fans to face, the Penguins have pivoted to a retool and don’t have much in the pipeline to look forward to. If Crosby was to leave Pittsburgh, it would mean they are locked into many overpriced long-term deals, with a poor farm system and not much hope at the NHL level.
However, that moment isn’t yet a reality, and given Crosby’s superstitious nature and desire to remain in Pittsburgh, it is a reality they may not have to face until he retires.
Brayden Yager Is Penguins Top Prospect
Former Boston Bruins goaltender and current NESN analyst Andrew Raycroft joined The Skate Pod to discuss the contract situation of Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman. Raycroft told the panel that Bruins fans shouldn’t be concerned at this juncture, and he wouldn’t be concerned about the contract negotiations until September.
Boston has been busy this summer dealing goaltender Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators and signing unrestricted free agents Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm to long-term deals. Despite the lucrative deals they’ve dished out, the Bruins remain in a good position to re-sign Swayman as they sit $8.6MM under the salary cap limit (as per PuckPedia) and could easily fit an $8MM cap hit in for their newly appointed starting goaltender.
In other evening notes:
- Former Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes center Evgeny Kuznetsov told MatchTV that he struggled so badly during this past season that he didn’t want his family to watch him play. The 32-year-old was once a perennial point-per-game player but fell to just eight goals and 16 assists in 63 games this past season and wasn’t nearly as effective as he once was. Kuznetsov and the Hurricanes terminated the final year of his NHL contract in mid-July so that he could return to Russia where he signed a four-year deal with SKA of the KHL.
- Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff covered the Pittsburgh Penguins in his NHL Prospect Pool Breakdown and believes that Brayden Yager is far and away the Penguins’ best prospect and likely the only prospect they have who could play in their top six eventually. The Penguins have had a difficult time developing scoring forwards over the past decade and it has been a drain on the likes of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin who have had to carry the offensive load for much of the past ten years. Ellis notes that Yager is still a few years away from developing into a top-six forward which makes it entirely possible that the 19-year-old center will never play with the veteran stars.
Penguins Sign Sergei Murashov To Entry-Level Contract
The Pittsburgh Penguins are bringing a solid goaltending prospect to North America as the team announced they have signed goalie Sergei Murashov to a three-year, entry-level contract. Murashov should compete with Penguins’ prospect Taylor Gauthier for the backup minutes with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins with the loser of that battle earning the starter’s role with the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL.
It is Joel Blomqvist‘s net to lose with the AHL Penguins but Marashov should be biting at his ankles relatively quickly. No matter how this situation plays out — Pittsburgh is quickly building one of the better goaltending pipelines in the league.
The Penguins selected Murashov with the 118th overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft after a promising season with Loko-76 Yaroslavl of the MHL. In his draft year, Murashov played in 41 games for Yaroslavl and recorded a 21-16-3 record with a .927 save percentage and 2.49 goals against average. Hoping to keep his confidence up by playing in his birth city, the Penguins have left Murashov to develop in Russia for the last two years.
Murashov has continued his development with Loko Yaroslavl of the MHL over the last two years and had brief playing time with their KHL affiliate, the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Playing on one of the most successful organizations in Russia’s major feeder league, Murashov produced a 24-7-5 record in 37 games during the 2022-23 season with a .948 SV% and 1.53 GAA. Murashov carried a .932 SV% in that year’s playoffs before losing in the semi-finals.
The 2023-24 season became his most dominant as Murashov collected 24 wins in 34 games with a .930 SV%. In the playoffs, the young Russian netminder earned a .926 SV% and 2.07 GAA en route to his team becoming champions at the end of the season.
Murashov is still young for a goaltending prospect at only 20 years old, so he may end up starting the year in Wheeling just for development’s sake. However, if he continues his upward trajectory there should be no question Murashov will be competing for a full-time job in the AHL soon.
Malkin Hoping To Play With Metallurg Before Retiring
While Evgeni Malkin won’t be leaving the NHL anytime soon, he is thinking ahead to his next deal, telling TASS in Russia that he’d like to play at least one season with Metallurg Magnitogorsk before calling it a career. The 37-year-old has played in that organization twice so far, first at the beginning of his career before being drafted by Pittsburgh while also suiting up for them back in 2012-13 during the lockout where he finished third in KHL scoring despite missing 15 games. Malkin enters 2024-25 sitting 37th in all-time NHL points and with him having two years left on his contract with the Penguins, he will be moving up that list fairly quickly before potentially wrapping up his career back home.
Will The Penguins Make Any More Moves This Summer?
In a think piece regarding the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier today, Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette suggests the Penguins could still do more to improve their team this summer. Pittsburgh has nearly $3.5MM available in cap space and could weaponize that in a few ways to improve their playoff chances for the 2024-25 NHL season.
Next year, one of the bigger question marks surrounding the Penguins is who will play next to Sidney Crosby on the team’s top line. Currently, Drew O’Connor is penciled in, but Pittsburgh may be able to snag Max Pacioretty or James van Riemsdyk on the free-agent market. Additionally, Vensel puts forward the idea that the Penguins could go after Trevor Zegras from the Anaheim Ducks or Rutger McGroarty from the Winnipeg Jets organization.
Zegras may be hard to capture at this point in the offseason as the Ducks will look to get higher above the cap floor and will look to capitalize off a better season from Zegras. Although McGroarty has already made public his desire to move away from the Jets organization, Winnipeg is under no time crunch to move him. The Penguins may be best served by scouring the crumbles on the free-agent market this summer and attempting to pursue a bigger fish next offseason.
Penguins Sign Brayden Yager To Entry-Level Contract
The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed 2023 first-round pick Brayden Yager to his entry-level contract. Contract details have not yet been released. This move will likely turn Yager pro after a successful four-year career with the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors. He was one of many offensive stars on the Warriors lineup, flanked by players like Jagger Firkus, Denton Mateychyuk, and, this season, Matthew Savoie. Moose Jaw vindicated such a talented lineup with a WHL championship this year, though they fell to third place in the 2024 Memorial Cup. Yager was a crucial piece all year long, tallying 35 goals and 95 points across 57 regular season games, and 27 points in 20 playoff games.
The season was a fantastic encore to Yager’s draft-year performance in 2022-23, when he managed 78 points in 67 games on a, relatively, weaker Moose Jaw lineup. He showed all of the makings of a top prospect, and even earned top-10 and top-five hype from some public sources. He earned the attention with some fantastic playmaking abilities, showing a special ability to orchestrate play even at top speeds. But a lanky six-foot, 170-pound frame had some teams apprehensive come draft day, ultimately pushing Yager to 14th overall.
Only four players selected above Yager have made their NHL debuts – Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli, and Zach Benson – and they’ve each quickly carved out lineup roles. Yager will have the chance to do the same in Pittsburgh’s training camp, and could even wind up an X-factor for an aging Penguins core. But he seems more likely set for a trip to the AHL first, where he could join Moose Jaw teammate Atley Calvert, as well as Tristan Broz and Owen Pickering, as a top prospect fighting for minutes.