Eyes Water

Pittsburgh and Sidney Crosby conspired to make eyes water today as they came to terms on a 12-year, $104.4 million dollar contract extension.  This sees the Penguin superstar on the books somewhere until 2024, when he'll be 36.

For Pittsburgh, this is possibly a can't lose proposition:

• There's always the chance that the CBA being negotiated this summer will exclude ridiculous, cap-circumventing terms like this, with some kind of retroactive clauses to get owners out of the deep holes they happily dug (see also: Luongo, Kovalchuk, et al);
• If the CBA deals with both the salary cap and floor, there's a good chance that it will include a haircut on existing contracts the way the previous did -- my guess is that the haircut is priced into this contract and the cap hit for Crosby will be less than what's indicated here;
•  If Crosby plays well, it keeps the asset safe in Pittsburgh;
• If Crosby doesn't play well, he'll probably be on the injury reserve with another concussion or similar condition -- where the team doesn't have to pay his salary

The possibility that he stays healthy but doesn't play well doesn't seem likely with this player.

Personally though if I was a GM, I wouldn't be signing such contracts before I knew what the CBA was going to do them.  Similarly, if I was a player, I'd want to know if I needed to price in a haircut into my contract.

Isn't hockey fun!

Crosby Is A Hypocrite

Sidney Crosby, September 2011:

"As a League, as a union, I think we've all educated ourselves a lot in the last six or seven months. I think it can go further. At the end of the day I don't think there's a reason not to take [hits to the head] out.

Sidney Crosby, November 2011:
Sidney Crosby, a couple of hours later:

I don’t what he’s talking about. I was preaching about the hits like tonight (Pacioretty hit on Letang) , not a scrum….I don’t know what he expects after he runs a goalie three times…if he is going to run a goalie, he got to expect guys are going to get their hands in his face….he is blowing it out of proportion.

Shanahan apparently has no problems with any of this. One might suspect that if Crosby had been the elbow-ee instead of the elbow-er things might have been different.

Look, the bottom line is: either head shots are bad, or they are not. Players, Crosby in particular, can't have it both ways.

Unrealistic

One game back and everyone's wondering if it's not too late for Sidney Crosby to win the scoring race for this year.

Too soon, guys. Too soon. One game does not a pattern make.

Now if he goes ten games at the same rate of putting up points and goals -- maybe then its appropriate to discuss.