What the Crosby Fallout Would Look Like For the Penguins

The presumptive denials that Sidney Crosby could play for anyone else but the Pittsburgh Penguins are beginning to soften. After a summer of waiting for news of the new contract, training camp and the slip-n-slide of the 2024-25 NHL season are nearly upon us.

And for every scoff and terse dismissal that the situation could end far differently than most assumed, another day passes, increasing that likelihood just a little bit.

While the focus has remained on the probability of a new contract or pondering why Crosby may not stick through the coming rebuild, few have pondered the potential fallout. And it could be cataclysmic.

UPDATE: Sidney Crosby told reporters at a league media event in Las Vegas Monday that he’s “pretty optimistic” he will sign a new contract with the Penguins soon.

•Would Evgeni Malkin finish the final year of his contract (and likely the last of his career) with the Penguins if Crosby doesn’t re-sign?

•Would defenseman Kris Letang—who admitted to having family meetings to pick a new city when his last contract was expiring two years ago, and the Penguins organization waited until the 11th hour to get a deal done—stick around or happily request a trade to specific cities?

•Would Erik Karlsson become the de facto leader, or would he hop the last train out of town for a coveted shot at winning the Stanley Cup?

•Lastly, and perhaps most importantly to the organization and the Fenway Sports Group ownership group, would fans rejoice and keep buying tickets in the scorched earth rebuild or abandon the organization until there’s a winner again? And how would FSG react if large numbers of fans stop coming?

That one should scare everyone now or when Crosby retires.

Penguins Fans, Rebuilding

Penguins fans are a unique breed, even among hockey fans. Multiple generations blended into a singular fanbase, but several of the subsets were born of failure. There are the fans who spent just a few bucks to see a game before and during the early days of Mario Lemieux’s arrival. Fans laughingly recall being able to sit near the glass for the cost of a beer because the larger Pittsburgh sports fanbase didn’t understand or care about hockey.

There are the (formerly) young fans born of Generation Next. Whatever the period between 2002 and 2005 was called, it was increasingly awful hockey as the organization’s financial picture crumbled with a 50-year-old arena, paltry league revenue sharing, and a patchwork team of bonafide AHL players surrounding a few NHLers. However, from those ashes rose the Student Rush program in which thousands of college students got into the game for $10–getting the best seats available.

Players even brought pizza for the students who waited in the increasingly long Rush Ticket line.

The games were generally not great hockey, but the atmosphere became a college party with 10,000 in attendance. Wins seemed to matter to the fans, even if they didn’t to the standings. Yeah, a half-empty arena held something special that probably cannot be replicated. It was the perfect storm leading to the young crop of Penguins players, including Crosby.

The communion between fans and players was never greater. But it seems after nearly 20 years, many fans, probably those generations conceived in failure, have tired of the core three and eagerly anticipate the nuclear rebuild.

Fans have told Pittsburgh Hockey Now hundreds, nay thousands of times, that the team must tank to get the high draft picks and can then win a Stanley Cup in a few years. That’s just how it works.

Well, that’s how it worked twice before.

Side note: Many gloss over the Edmonton Oilers’ three first-overall picks, and the team wallowed in failure until their fourth first-overall pick, Connor McDavid, arrived in 2015. Edmonton had 10 top-10 picks from 2007 through 2018, including the four first-overall picks. 2024 was their first Stanley Cup Final.

The Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, and Anaheim Ducks have stockpiled top-10 picks but have are caught in what Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas warningly called “wandering the abyss.”

Generational talents don’t come along every year. Having the first overall pick is nothing close to a guarantee of getting a generational talent. Alex Lafreniere, Owen Power, and Juraj Slafkovsky are becoming fine players, though hardly indispensable, but I digress.

Penguins Set Up?

Dubas has seemingly set the table for a full-scale rebuild to begin next summer. Of the three primary free agent signings, two were one-year deals (Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk), and only Blake Lizotte got a second year. Of the trade acquisitions, Cody Glass has one year remaining at $2.5 million (he’ll be a restricted free agent), and Kevin Hayes has two years remaining at $3.5 million.

Marcus Pettersson, who is waiting in line behind Crosby for a new contract, remains unsigned beyond this season.

Drew O’Connor and Lars Eller are also free agents next summer.

And keep this in your back pocket: Bryan Rust’s no-movement clause expires next summer.

It could be a hefty turnover. Dubas has reportedly offered Crosby his choice of contract length, and many of the choices that follow will likely hinge upon Crosby’s decision. The Penguins’ landscape could be wiped cleaner than a plate of press box nachos.

Of course, several of the aforementioned could leave regardless of Crosby’s decision. Dubas stridently said he needed to make his team younger, and the Penguin’s average age is still 29.38, the third oldest in the league, according to Elite Prospects.

But it could be the quick exit of the organization’s stalwarts, Letang and Evgeni Malkin, who have sold thousands of jerseys and tens of thousands of tickets in their careers. The three amigos have defined a team longer and unlike any core before them and probably after them. No team in sports has boasted a trio like them for as nearly as long.

So, with the obligatory nod to the presumed likelihood of Crosby signing a new deal and finishing his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, we must also wonder about the fallout if he doesn’t.