CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Sidney Crosby seems at peace with his contract status as his 22nd season with the Pittsburgh Penguins begins.
Same goes for teammate Erik Karlsson, though for slightly different reasons.
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While both future Hall of Famers are entering the final year of their current deals, their prospects of playing together beyond this season are uncertain as an abbreviated training camp begins.
The question for Crosby, a franchise icon and the longest-tenured captain in NHL history, doesn’t seem to center so much on if something gets done but when, for how long and how much.
Not that money has ever been the driving force for a player likely to move into the top five on the league’s all-time scoring list this year provided he stays healthy. Crosby’s current deal carries an average annual value of $8.7 million (a nod to his Aug. 7 birthday), a number that doesn’t even rank in the top 50 in the NHL these days.
“I’d like to continue playing for a number of years,” the three-time Stanley Cup winner said recently. “I just don’t know what that number is. And I guess your mind and body tell you that eventually. And right now, I feel pretty good, though.”
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With Crosby’s 40th birthday looming next summer, the unknown is how much longer he can keep producing at a level that meets his remarkably high standards. For however long that goes, Crosby will almost certainly have a locker stall in the Penguins dressing room with his No. 87 jersey hanging in it.
“I think that Sid is going to play for a long time if he continues to see things this way,” assistant general manager Jason Spezza said Thursday as the team opened training camp. “Where that falls into the contract, I do think it’s less of a concern for us internally and probably for him at this point.”
Crosby hardly looked his age last season, the 21st straight in which he averaged a point a game. He remains as competitive as ever, and when he and the rest of the Penguins officially started training camp — a significant chunk of the team, Crosby included, has been working out together for weeks — they did it with the welcome return of expectations after ending a three-year playoff drought.
It’s a significant shift from a year ago, when much wasn’t expected of a retooled roster under then first-year coach Dan Muse. All the Penguins did was explode out of the gate on their way to a second-place finish in the Metropolitan Division behind eventual Stanley Cup champion Carolina.
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Karlsson’s re-emergence played a pivotal role in Pittsburgh’s return to contention. The 18-year veteran said he has yet to talk to Dubas about an extension, but he’s not particularly worried about it.
“I’m 36 years old, feel really good, got a lot of years left in me and you know the future is not something that I’ve really thought about,” Karlsson said.
The way Karlsson figures it, the season is likely to go one of two ways.
Pittsburgh will take another step forward and provide Dubas tangible reasons to add to the roster at the trade deadline in hopes of making a playoff run. Or they’ll stumble and Dubas will look to find new homes for players on expiring deals, including a defenseman who remains an elite skater and a dynamic quarterback on the power play.
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Karlsson had 15 goals and 51 assists last year and finished with a positive plus/minus rating (plus-8) for the first time in nearly a decade. While he’s optimistic the Penguins can “hit another gear,” he’s been around long enough to know how the business side of things work.
“Our team is in a weird stage I think,” he said. “So we’ll see how it goes this year and all I can say is that I enjoy myself. I like being here.”
Asked what he meant by “weird,” the typically blunt Swedish star just shrugged.
“I think that everybody in here feels that we’ve got a little bit more to give and you know that’s what we’re going to try and bring out of ourselves,” he said. “Hopefully we can accomplish that and that situation is going to look a certain way. And if we don’t, you know, it’s going to look a different way. And which way it’s going to go, we’re going to find out.”
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Though Dubas had some financial flexibility in free agency over the summer, he focused on building depth rather than making a splashy move to add to a roster that includes a core deep into their 30s.
The Penguins re-signed Evgeni Malkin after drawn out talks, acquired forwards Nick Robertson, Hendrix Lapierre and signed defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk in July. They also inked forward Tommy Novak and Ville Koivunen to extensions.
Dubas has stressed that his long-term goal is to make Pittsburgh a consistent contender rather than push all the chips in for one last stand for Crosby and fellow franchise cornerstones Malkin and Kris Letang.
Karlsson understands the tenuous position the team remains in as it tries to navigate the twilight of one era while pressing on toward the dawn of another. He’d like to be a part of it, sure. But he plans to keep going, be it in Pittsburgh or elsewhere.
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“I think for the majority of my career, I’ve always been at par with the best players in the league, and I still feel that I am,” he said. “And I expect that out of myself. I know what I have to offer, and I know what I’m good at, and what I need to work on, and I’m going to continue to do that for as long as I play.”
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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.
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