Sidney Crosby Enters 22nd NHL Season With Pittsburgh Penguins
Sidney Crosby enters the final year of his contract as he prepares for his 22nd NHL season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. As the team opens its campaign against Philadelphia, the longtime captain maintains his intense practice routine, extending a career that includes three Stanley Cup championships and historical points milestones.
The Grind on the Eve of Season 22
It is the next-to-last day of September in Pittsburgh, and less than 36 hours remain before the Penguins open their season across the state against Philadelphia. On a Tuesday morning practice session, Crosby works through an hour-long skate with the same intensity he showed when he entered the league as a teenager on Oct. 5, 2005. During drills, he deflects a point shot past rookie goaltender Sergei Murashov—who was still in diapers in his native Russia when Crosby made his NHL debut—and backchecks furiously after a missed pass before expressing brief frustration against the end boards.
When the main practice concludes, Crosby remains on the ice for more than 20 minutes alongside longtime teammates Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse, who took over the team in the summer of 2025, noted the unusual duration and intensity of their training habits. “Sometimes I (was) surprised last year,” Muse said. “Now I guess I’m not as surprised at how long they’re out there for. … I think for everybody who’s seeing it too, like I said, it’s not necessarily the normal.”
Contract Status and Career Longevity
While Malkin and Letang have established their own historic tenures alongside Crosby over two decades, Crosby has consistently carried the heaviest expectations, tracing back to his roots in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. When the puck drops in Philadelphia on Wednesday night, it marks the first time Crosby begins a season in the final year of his current contract. He is in no rush to sign an extension, emphasizing that his future depends entirely on how his body feels. “I don’t think you ever know until you get to that point,” Crosby told reporters when delivering season tickets to select fans earlier this month. “But I’m guessing it’s your level, it’s how your body feels, it’s a combination of all those things. Overall, I feel pretty good.”
Crosby remains the only player in NHL history to average a point per game for 21 straight seasons. His offseason did not include extended rest following Pittsburgh’s first-round playoff exit against Philadelphia; instead, he traveled to the 2026 World Championships to serve as an alternate captain to 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini for Team Canada, following an injury-shortened bid for Olympic gold at the 2026 Cortina Winter Games.
Chasing Wins and Managing the Future
Despite shouldering decades of competitive hockey, Crosby describes his ongoing motivation simply through his enduring drive to win. “Ultimately, you just, every night you step on the ice, you’re trying to win a hockey game,” Crosby said. “That’s something that’s still there. I think it provides a lot of fire to everything for me.” As the milestone-chasing forward closes in on his 40th birthday and sits seventh on the NHL’s all-time scoring list with his sights on the top five, his daily preparation shows no signs of slowing down.