Sidney Crosby had craved this phone call for years.
He wanted it desperately from the time he watched Team Canada — captained by a guy who would become his landlord a few years later — win a gold medal at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002.
But when word finally arrived yesterday morning that he had been selected to represent his country at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Crosby wasn’t there to hear it.
NEWARK, N.J. — Brent Johnson was having one of those games, the kind when a goalie just knows he’s going to stop everything he sees.
New Jersey threw 32 pucks at him, and Johnson got a skate or a stick or a glove on every last one of ‘em.
Except for the one he never saw until he fished it out of the net.
Trouble is, that turned out to be the only goal the Devils needed in what became a 2-0 victory against the Penguins at the Prudential Center last night.
Niclas Bergfors scored it at 1:48 of the opening period, when his shot from below the hash mark along the right-wing boards sneaked past several Penguins and ended up behind Johnson.
thanks to Pensburgh!
The combination of Sidney Crosby scoring clutch goals at one end of the rink and Marc-Andre Fleury making timely saves at the other was potent enough to lead the Penguins to a Stanley Cup championship in June. Executive Director of Team Canada Steve Yzerman hopes the duo has enough magic left up their sleeves to deliver their second major victory in eight months – a gold medal in the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Crosby and Fleury received the phone call they have anticipated their entire lives on Wednesday afternoon when it was confirmed both will be representing Team Canada in the Olympic Games scheduled for Feb. 12-28 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Both players will be making their debuts on the Olympic stage.
Neither Crosby’s nor Fleury’s selection to the squad was much of a surprise based upon the way each has elevated his game during the past two postseasons. During back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Final Crosby has scored 58 points (21G-37A) in 44 games while Fleury has posted a 30-14 record. As a vice president for the Detroit Red Wings, Yzerman has had a front-row seat for the ‘Crosby and Fleury Show’ as Detroit has been the Penguins’ opponent during both Finals.
BUFFALO — The Penguins failed to hold a three-goal lead and lost to Buffalo, 4-3, at HSBC Arena tonight.
It was the first time this season the Penguins (26-13-1) have lost after building a three-goal advantage and just the second time they’ve lost when scoring as many as three goals.
Jordan Staal put the Penguins up, 1-0, at 4:08 of the opening period by swatting a Tyler Kennedy rebound past Sabres goalie Ryan Miller from between the left circle and the crease for his 11th of the season.
Kennedy’s assist was his first point in his past 12 games. He had been a healthy scratch for the Penguins’ 4-3 loss to Toronto Sunday night at Mellon Arena.
Sidney Crosby has always focused on carving out his own path. But his career is starting to resemble those of the great players who came before him.
The 22-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins captain was named The Canadian Press male athlete of the year Monday, joining an exclusive club by earning the recognition for a second time.
Only 12 hockey players have won the Lionel Conacher Award since it was established in 1932 and just six of those men have received it more than once. Crosby joins multiple-time winners Maurice (Rocket) Richard, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
This looked like a gift — yes, another one — for the Penguins from the NHL schedule-maker.
Yet another game against another luckless opponent that had to play in some other city the previous night, then travel to face the Penguins, who hadn’t done anything more strenuous than operating a remote control 24 hours earlier.
The Penguins have padded their points total a lot lately against such clubs, and getting a chance to spend an evening with Toronto one night after the Maple Leafs lost an overtime game against Montreal seemed like an opportunity to do it again.
But the circumstance were different this time. And so was the outcome.
The NHL’s two-day pause for the holidays is over. The Penguins got back to practice last night and play Toronto tonight at Mellon Arena.
As they do every year at this time, the Penguins had a series of hospital visits and charity events. While there are other such functions outside of the holiday season, a handful of players and coach Dan Bylsma make that kind of giving a year-round venture. They have taken the extra step of forming a registered charitable foundation.
“There are people who want to help; there are people who need help,” center Sidney Crosby said. “When you have a foundation, that’s really the glue that can put that all together.”
Scrunching up some leftover hockey tape into a sticky ball, Evgeni (Gino) Malkin fires the gooey orb at a nearby garbage pail in the Pittsburgh Penguins dressing room.
Malkin misses.
The pail, that is.
He does, however, hit a passer-by with a “splat.”
Sitting three cubicles away, Sidney Crosby has a good laugh at Malkin’s aim. Or, in this particular case, his lack of it.
Stanley Cup champion Sidney Crosby is the Canwest News Service male athlete of the year.
The 22-year-old hockey superstar from Cole Harbour, N.S., captured 217 points, beating out reigning downhill world champion John Kucera of Calgary (104 points), and Major League Baseball star Jason Bay of Trail, B.C., (71 points) in a year-end poll of writers, columnists and editors at Canwest newspapers across Canada.
Points were awarded on a 10-6-3 basis.
Crosby led the Pittsburgh Penguins to a dramatic seven-game Stanley Cup final win over the defending champion Detroit Red Wings.
Pittsburgh took the final game 2-1 in Detroit and had to play the second half of the contest without Crosby, who suffered a second-period knee injury and was glued to the bench.
At 21, he became the youngest captain of a Stanley Cup winning team.
Sidney Crosby is ready for the second-guessing to begin.
With Team Canada executive director Steve Yzerman set to announce the team’s roster for the Vancouver Olympics next week, the Pittsburgh Penguins superstar told reporters he expects there will be plenty of debate in his native land over who is left off the team.
Crosby is one of six or seven forwards who is a lock to make the team, so nobody is going to cry foul over his selection. But there are some good battles for spots on the third and fourth lines, and some players many people think are deserving of an Olympic shot are going to get left off the list.
“It wouldn’t be normal without that (second-guessing),” Crosby said Wednesday. “That’s Canada. Everybody cares. If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t be second-guessing. That’s going to happen.
Hat trick, 45 saves among many highlights in big victory
Remember that slump Evgeni Malkin was in?
The one that had dragged on for a couple of weeks, when Malkin often seemed to have more bad penalties than good shifts?
Well, Malkin reduced it to nothing more than a sour memory last night by scoring three goals in the Penguins’ 8-2 victory against the Ottawa Senators against Mellon Arena.
It was his fourth career hat trick, but earned him recognition only as the second star of the game.
Which was perfectly reasonable, since the only job tougher than tending goal for the Senators was trying to whittle down the list of worthy candidates for star-of-the-game consideration.
