Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates his goal with teammates on the bench during the first period against the Montreal Canadiens at Centre Bell in Montreal on Nov. 18.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
As one of the few NHL head coaches to experience the rare high that only back-to-back Stanley Cup championships can bring, the 2021-22 season has been almost nothing but lows for Mike Sullivan.
Since beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-1 on Oct. 23, the Pittsburgh Penguins head coach has overseen a squad that proceeded to lose eight of its next 10 games, culminating in a hat trick of defeats against Ottawa, Washington and Buffalo, dropping the Penguins below the Sabres in the process.
To make matters worse, COVID-19 has ripped through the Pittsburgh roster this season, putting eight players out of action and eventually catching up with its coach earlier this month. However, despite making a full recovery, the fully vaccinated Sullivan fell afoul of Canada’s quarantine requirements, and was unable to accompany the team on its trip to Montreal for Thursday’s game.
Instead the Penguins bench boss spent the night just across the border in Buffalo, and had to make do with watching the game against the Canadiens on a hotel TV, and using WebEx to communicate with his staff between periods. For a coach who often gives the impression he’d like to get even closer to the action than the few centimetres separating the bench from the ice permits, watching a game from more than 600 kilometres away was “unusual,” as Sullivan politely termed it.
At least he still had Sidney Crosby to call on.
Playing in just his fourth game of the year, and first on Canadian soil since the 2020 playoffs, the Penguins captain set the tone for his team early on, scoring his first goal of the season and laying the foundation for a blowout 6-0 victory over the Habs.
“It certainly makes it more comforting when I’m watching it on TV, that’s for sure,” Sullivan said on Friday of his captain’s presence in the lineup, after finally making it to Toronto, where the Penguins play the Leafs on Saturday.
Despite all the doom and gloom that has hovered over the Penguins this season, the return of No. 87 has imbued everyone with a sense of optimism that few players east of Edmonton can bring. Crosby has experienced his own share of frustrations this season, having missed all of training camp and preseason after undergoing wrist surgery in September.
When he finally made his debut the day before Halloween, Crosby showed a level of predictable rust, drawing a blank in the stats column and being on the ice for three goals against in a 4-2 loss to New Jersey.
But the delayed start proved something of a false dawn, too. Like his head coach, the two-time Hart Trophy winner also tested positive for the coronavirus and had to miss the next five games.
For a team already without fellow superstar Evgeni Malkin, who underwent off-season knee surgery and was expected to miss at least the first two months of the season, the continued absence of Crosby could put a 16th consecutive trip to the postseason – and continuing the longest active streak in the NHL – in jeopardy.
Getting a goal in his first game back in his home country should bode well for Crosby and the Penguins. Both the team and player are taking it slow though. Through four games, the 34-year-old is averaging 17 minutes 47 seconds of ice time, more than three minutes shy of his career average of 20:49.
“I’m still learning,” Crosby said after Thursday’s victory. “This is a new scenario for me to go through. I’ve come back from injury but never that long, missing camp and going through stuff with the virus.
“It’s hard to be patient, but you kind of have to be and it’s a lot easier when you get a win to kind of get through it.”
With Crosby one of three players already selected to Canada’s Olympic team, a return to full fitness is not just a fillip for the Penguins, but also for this country’s chances of regaining gold at the men’s hockey tournament in Beijing in February.
The Montreal crowd at the Bell Centre certainly appreciated his presence on Thursday, with the announcement of his name drawing a rousing ovation before the game.
The moment didn’t go unnoticed by his teammates, either, with Kris Letang attempting to explain the positive attention the Cole Harbour, N.S., native gets when Pittsburgh plays in Montreal.
“For sure,” the Penguins defenceman said Thursday. “There’s no team in Nova Scotia, so the closest one I guess is Montreal.
“He grew up watching the Montreal Canadiens and for any player that comes here, whether you’re from Russia or anywhere, it’s a special building.”
Like everyone else in the hockey world, Crosby’s teammates are well aware what a healthy, thriving addition the all-star centre would mean to a team struggling to get its season back on track, particularly in the continued absence of other impact players.
“Take a guy like Sid, you know, there’s no replacing him,” Penguins defenceman Mike Matheson said after practice on Friday. “And that’s just the nature of him being the player he is and the special player that he is.”
Crosby’s influence may be most keenly felt on the power play, with Pittsburgh converting just 11.8 per cent of its man advantages, a league-low figure that trails the expansion Seattle Kraken’s 12.5-per-cent conversion rate.
It’s hardly surprising that, with Sullivan back to take charge of a live, in-person practice, the Penguins dedicated a significant amount of time to their power play on Friday at Scotiabank Arena. Getting it up to speed could be crucial against a Leafs team that owns the NHL’s fourth-best penalty-killing unit.
“We’ve got a lot of different people on the power play, there’s a lot of moving parts,” Sullivan said. “Now that Sid’s back in the lineup, it gives us a whole different dimension there.”
With the likes of Connor McDavid seemingly creating human-highlight reels at will, and old adversary Alexander Ovechkin lighting the lamp with metronomic regularity, and on pace for a 58-goal campaign, it’s hard to believe someone as singularly obsessive about his own game as Crosby hasn’t taken notice.
As someone who has benefited from Crosby’s meticulous approach to the sport of hockey, Sullivan knows that his captain will leave no stone unturned in his efforts to restore some lustre to Pittsburgh’s campaign.
“He just controls everything within his power and to try to set himself up for success,” Sullivan said. “Everything from the work he puts in in the weight room and on the ice, to his diet and how he fuels his body to get his proper rest, there isn’t an i that isn’t dotted, or a t that’s not crossed.
“I don’t think it’s by accident that he’s been the best player in the game for a decade plus.”