Enjoy the following three years of watching Sidney Crosby play for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Breathe it in. Appreciate it. Get slightly sentimental if you might want to.
You won’t ever see anyone like him again in your life.
I'm not talking in regards to the hockey, the backhand, the vision, the ability, the tenacity – you already know, all of the things that made him one in every of the best hockey players of all time.
No, it's about Crosby as an individual, a selfless figure in an era when sports are so permeated by greed that skilled athletes are even further faraway from reality.
Oh, sure, Crosby will make more cash next season than most of us will ever see in our lifetime. He won't be living in a studio apartment anytime soon. But his recent contract says a lot about Crosby as an individual and Crosby as a captain.
GO DEEPER
Penguins sign Crosby to a brand new 2-year contract
By signing a two-year contract that takes effect on the Monday after this season, Crosby has once more given up extra money to proceed receiving his regular salary of $8.7 million per season. Although his countless superstitions are legendary, we make way an excessive amount of of them. Most importantly, he is just not greedy and cares in regards to the fate of this franchise.
Kyle Dubas had no influence. The Penguins' general manager and president of hockey operations may be very well paid and has just as much power, but he isn’t any more powerful than Crosby.
In other cities and other teams, that wouldn't be the case, but that is different. In Pittsburgh, hockey stars are larger than the franchise. And Crosby isn't just one other star. He's some of the necessary hockey players of this century, and top-of-the-line. He's still in top shape and will easily have demanded many tens of millions more per 12 months. Dubas would have given him whatever he wanted. He had no selection.
However, Crosby never chooses Crosby. His kind and selfless personality reflects the actual man. There is nothing contrived or insincere about him. Winning is the one thing that drives him, and that has been the case since he emerged as a 17-year-old 20 summers ago.
By my estimate, Crosby has left about $43 million on the table and earned $8.7 million each season since 2008-09. https://t.co/JRn4vKFkLO
– dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) 16 September 2024
Just as remarkable as the cash is the two-year term of the contract.
This contract will take Crosby through his thirty ninth season, just a few months before his fortieth birthday. Is this the last contract of Crosby's profession? Maybe. Forty is a pleasant, round number, and by then he may have spent greater than half his life as captain of the Penguins. That will even be the top of his twenty second NHL season. That's a whole lot of hockey, and it's not like he has anything left to perform.
The two-year term has some implications. Let's break all of it down intimately:
• You can see Crosby for at the very least three more seasons. That ought to be a giant comfort to those of you who fear his retirement.
• The Penguins is not going to have a “complete rebuild” over the following three years. As Dubas noted, they’ll probably never be a top-five worst team with Crosby still on the roster because he's too good. Instead, we'll see a mini-rebuild or re-alignment.
• Crosby could have asked for more years. The Penguins would give the captain as a few years as he wanted. He selected to not because he didn't wish to handicap the team. What if he signed for one more five years, but after the primary few years, realized his passion for the sport had faded? Or perhaps his play will start to say no. That looks as if a foreign concept, because he’s probably the most enduring superstar within the history of the game. He seems ageless. But I assure you, he is just not. Eventually he’ll change into human. Crosby knows that and doesn't wish to negatively impact the Penguins if that happens soon.
The worst-case scenario can be that Crosby plays three more years with the Penguins, the team doesn't make the playoffs, Crosby retires in 2027, and Dubas has loads of money – and young talent – that offers him the liberty to show the Penguins into winners in a flash.
Worst case scenario, you get to see Crosby until the top. You get to enjoy his farewell tour. And all of the while, you get to know that a brand new wave of Penguins players are learning the right way to be pros from one in every of the best captains in hockey history.
That's the great thing about the two-year contract: It's long enough to enjoy it for just a few more years, but not so long that he looks like he and the Penguins are cornered.
If he's still great at 39 and needs to play longer, that's even higher. No one needs to point out Crosby the door. And by then, the Penguins is likely to be able to win. Dubas is doing what he's speculated to do. He's committed to developing talented young players, a far cry from the occasional call-ups from Wilkes-Barre we've seen over the past few seasons.
The best case scenario can be if Crosby, who continues to be one in every of the highest five or ten players within the league, can maintain this level of play for just a few more years while all this young talent suddenly blossoms.
Crosby's final appearance with the Penguins could possibly be special if those two possibilities come together. Watching him take one or two final shots at winning a championship with a gaggle of youngsters carrying the torch can be special.
That's hardly unimaginable. Much of that’s made possible by the contract he signed. He saved the franchise a whole lot of money that it could spend on other players and assets. Crosby is staying in everyone's life for some time, but not too long, just in case retirement time approaches. If he's still great and hungry at 39, he'll sign one other short-term deal. Why not?
It's so practical, selfless and intelligent. It's so Crosby.
He will rightfully receive tremendous love from all Pittsburgh and Penguins fans all over the world. He deserves it.
But with this deal, Crosby returns all that affection.
He is actually unique.
image credit : www.nytimes.com