Sidney Crosby won’t play for Penguins against Rangers due to upper-body injury
The New York Rangers won’t have to deal with longtime nemesis Sidney Crosby when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
Crosby will miss his first game of the season because of an upper-body injury. He was on the ice with his teammates at the morning skate Friday. Crosby did some drills Thursday but did not skate with his teammates at practice for a second straight day.
“Right now, we are just taking it one day at a time,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said Friday. “He’s not going to play tonight. Obviously he’s on the ice participating in the morning skate, which is encouraging from our standpoint.”
The Penguins recalled forward Emil Bemstrom from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL on Friday.
Crosby last missed a game on April 7, 2022, when he was didn’t play in a 3-0 loss to the Rangers at the Garden.
The 37-year-old center went through a tip drill and the rest of his normal pre-practice routine Thursday before leaving for the auxiliary rink at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. He worked there alone while his teammates practiced on the main sheet.
Crosby was involved in a collision with New Jersey Devils defenseman Luke Hughes and forward Erik Haula early in the third period of a 3-2 shootout loss Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena, and appeared to be favoring his left arm. However, he returned after missing about seven minutes of play, took a regular shift during the rest of the period and in overtime, then was stopped by goalie Nico Daws in the shootout.
“I just got tangled up,” Crosby said after the game.
Crosby, who’s set to be captain of Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off from Feb. 12-20, did not skate at Wednesday’s practice.
Rickard Rakell, usually the left wing on the top line with Crosby, will take his spot at center on the No. 1 line against the Rangers.
Rakell, who was named Thursday to Team Sweden at the 4 Nations Face-Off, is second on the Penguins with 46 points and leads them with 24 goals.
Not having to deal with Crosby figures to be a boon to the Rangers. He has 108 points (40 goals, 68 assists) in 87 regular-season games against New York, his third-highest total against any team, behind only the New York Islanders (136 points in 89 games) and Philadelphia Flyers (133 points in 88 games). He has more points against the Rangers than any other active player; however, he has no points in two games against the Rangers this season; the Rangers won 6-0 on Oct. 9 in Pittsburgh and 4-2 at the Garden on Dec. 6.
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Sidney Crosby won’t play against Rangers due to upper-body injury
The 37-year-old, now in his 20th NHL season, leads the Penguins in scoring with 58 points (17 goals, 41 assists) in 55 games. He had a four-game goal-scoring streak snapped in the loss to the Devils, but had an assist to extend his point streak to five games. He is two shy of becoming the ninth player in NHL history to have 17 or more 60-point seasons.
Crosby, who signed a two-year contract extension in September, is also on target to become the first player to average more than a point a game in 20 seasons. He and Wayne Gretzky are the only players to do so for 19 seasons.
The No. 1 pick in the 2005 NHL Draft is second in Penguins history in goals (609) and points (1,584) behind Mario Lemieux (690 goals, 1,723 points). Crosby holds the team record for assists (1,045), having passed Lemieux (1,033) when he assisted on a goal by Michael Bunting against the Islanders on Dec. 29.
Crosby has won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL leading scorer twice (2006-07, 20013-14), the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the leading goal-scorer twice (2009-10, 2016-17), the Ted Lindsay Award, given annually to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by members of the NHL Players’ Association, three times (2006-07, 2012-13, 2013-14), the Hart Trophy as the League’s most valuable player twice (2006-07, 2013-14), and the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs twice (2015-16, 2016-17).
The Penguins (22-24-9) are eight points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the second wild-card playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. They qualified for the playoffs for 16 straight seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in 2009, 2016 and 2017; however, they’ve missed the playoffs in each of the past two seasons and are on course to do so again this season
The Penguins are already without center Evgeni Malkin, who has missed the past four games with a lower-body injury.
“It’s not going to be easy, losing our top two forwards,” Rakell said. “But it’s an opportunity for us other guys to just take that opportunity and do the best we can with it.”
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