Sidney Crosby gets fans nervous as he talks about future with Penguins

Fans are on the edge of their seats, awaiting significant changes in Pittsburgh as both Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang’s contracts end this summer.

To make things worse as Pittsburgh could lose one of both star players, captain Sidney Crosby addressed his own future with the team when asked about the remainder of his deal: three seasons remaining on a 12-year, $104.4 million contract he signed July 1, 2012. He can be an unrestricted free agent after the 2024-25 season.

“Three more, for sure,” Crosby said in his end of season presser. “We’ll see after that. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Three, definitely.”

Fans were surprised to hear him say anything about his contract, seeing that Crosby is usually the guy of player who focuses on the present and refuses to speculate on anything else.

Maybe the possibility of losing his two closest teammates has him thinking…

“We’ve been fortunate enough to play together a long time. We’ve been through a lot. I think you look at all of those experiences, there’s a lot of belief, a lot of trust in one another. With that, we’ve had success too, so there’s also a confidence level.

“That’s very rare. We all appreciate that. That being said. We all understand it’s not something that can happen forever. But hopefully a little bit longer, hopefully we continue to play together. It’s unique. It’s special.”

Now with the looming possibility of significant changes in Pittsburgh, there is a sense that it is all affecting Crosby and perhaps his future with the team.

On top of that, there has been rumours that GM Ron Hextall prevented Crosby from playing in Game 6 following his head injury in the previous contest in the series. Could there be an issue between the captain and front office? That’s all speculation, but you have to admit this is the first time Sid dares to talk about the future in this way… I thought his crazy superstitions didn’t allow him to… Many things are changing in Pittsburgh it seems…