Penguins captain Sidney Crosby welcomes a return to normal

Monday presented a new experience to Sidney Crosby.

He asked someone out on a date for homecoming.

To be clear, he aided someone in that task.

Crosby helped re-institute a tradition for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday as he and several of his teammates made personal deliveries to season-ticket holders in the region.

One of Crosby’s stops was in West View, where Will Jackson, a 16-year-old sophomore who serves as captain of North Hills’ junior varsity hockey team, decided to put his guest to use.

On his back porch, Jackson had Crosby hold up a sign asking his would-be date to an upcoming homecoming dance. The duo posed for a few photos that quickly appeared on social media.

“Creative,” Crosby said. “I like it. Hopefully, he gets the answer he’s been looking for.”

Beyond that, everything felt typical to Crosby. And he welcomed that.

After not being able to make these deliveries for the past two years because of the pandemic, Crosby expressed satisfaction in returning to a tradition the franchise has had in some form dating to the mid-2000s.

“It still feels normal,” Crosby said. “We’ve been doing it so long. There’s no actual tickets anymore, so that feels a little different. But, yeah, this is something that we’ve doing for a long time, so, yeah, it feels normal.”

Another normal feeling is Crosby and his longtime teammates — Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang — gathering in Cranberry for a handful of informal skates in advance of their 17th training camp together.

Considering Letang and Malkin — to say nothing of others such as Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell — entered this offseason with uncertain futures as pending unrestricted free agents, Crosby wasn’t sure if his friends, who might as well be family at this point, would be suiting up alongside him for the 2022-23 season.

But all four re-signed over the offseason and brought a measure of comfort to Crosby.

“Just waiting,” Crosby said when asked about what it was like monitoring the Penguins’ offseason from his perspective. “Seeing what happens and hoping things get worked out. I’d say it was just uncertainty. That’s the best word to describe it. You’re just unsure of what’s going to happen. You try to be optimistic.

“You never know with situations like that when it comes to contracts and negotiations. But the fact that it’s over with and we can move by it, that’s great. It’s been a big storyline, but it’s not. We’ve played together for a long time, so it kind of just feels normal, to be honest with you. It doesn’t feel any different than it does any year.”

One thing that felt different this summer for Crosby was being a guest at a Stanley Cup party instead of hosting one.

In August, Colorado Avalanche captain Nathan MacKinnon, a fellow native of Cole Harbor, Nova Scotia, celebrated his first Stanley Cup championship. Having attended a few of Crosby’s gatherings for the trophy, he insisted Crosby be at his.

“People were so excited and, obviously, proud of what he accomplished,” Crosby said. “You want to enjoy it. You want to take it in. But you want to be the one hosting it, too. It was a good couple of days. I’m happy for him. It was a good time had by all. That’s the best way to describe it.”

Desire might be another way to describe it.

“It’s a good reminder of just how much it brings people together. You see his family and friends. The people that are a part of it feel like they’ve won it, too. You see it up close when you’re on the other side of the party like that. That was cool to see. That’s something that makes you more motivated to want to do it again.”

But given the futility the Penguins have experienced in pursuing that goal — they haven’t won a playoff series over the past four years — what gives Crosby and company confidence they can realize those ambitions and still be a Stanley Cup contender?

“You look at last year, we played a pretty good team (in the New York Rangers during the playoffs) and did some pretty good things,” said Crosby, who turned 35 in August. “Didn’t close out the series but we did enough good things without doing that, that we were definitely right there and could have had it. There’s optimism because of that. We’ve played good hockey. We’ve had instances where we’ve had guys out and found ways to win. You need to do that consistently. There’s no guarantees. That’s the reality.

“But that being said, we’ve proven that we can be a good team. It doesn’t get any easier. But I think we’re motivated. We definitely have a good group that’s proven that we can be a good hockey team. We’ve got to find a way to get over the hump.”

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