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Crosby Practices w/ MacKinnon, Prospects Play Paintball, Jeffrey Re-Signed

July 19, 2013, 9:02 AM ET [105 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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CTV Atlantic was in Halifax on Tuesday while Sidney Crosby joined up with fellow Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia hockey product Nathan MacKinnon for a workout (link includes some video).

Crosby took to the ice in his familiar Penguins gear while rookie MacKinnon sported his brand new Colorado Avalanche threads.

During the interview after practice Crosby admitted to needing some more minor procedures on his jaw when he returns to Pittsburgh. Crosby also addressed the punch he received from Zdeno Chara in the Eastern Conference Finals:

“It`s part of the game,” says Crosby. “Refs can’t always see that kind of stuff. There’s nothing you can do. It’s part of the game. Guys are going to do that, I can’t do anything. If Zdeno Chara’s going to decide he`s going to punch me, what am I going to do? So, you kinda hope it gets called and if it doesn`t, you play through it.”



Crosby also touched on the Bruins series and perhaps one of the lessons learned:

“It is playoff hockey,” says Crosby. “At the end of the day, we didn’t score. I don`t think it had anything to do with the physical play. If anything, I think we did a pretty good job of imitating that. Maybe we were more physical than they were at certain points. We didn’t score. It`s something that we`ve turned the page, we`ll learn from it, nothing we can do now.”


I think the captain is admitting in an understated way that the Penguins lost focus of the goal scoring part of the mission and were sucked into playing overly physical. Hopefully it is something the Penguins learned and they will continue to adjust and focus on their team strengths (speed/skill).


The Penguins prospects went through a little off ice team building yesterday. The Penguins took their young players through a round of paintball. You can find pictures of their battle as well as other updates from camp (including Bill Guerin quotes) at the Penguins official website.



Dustin Jeffrey has re-signed with the Penguins. It is a one year deal and has a cap hit of 625k. With this signing the Penguins are now $498,333 over the salary cap limit. During the offseason teams are allowed to go 10% over the cap, so for the present time it is a non issue. Shero will definitely have to make some cap room by moving one of the current players. Matt Niskanen is still the most prime target for creating that cap space.

As far as Jeffrey is concerned I am still not sure what his role is with the Penguins. Given that Jeffrey was an RFA he had little options but to sign that one year contract. If he was a UFA you can be sure he would sign with another organization. Jeffrey has never had a defined role while up with the big club and I’m not sure that has changed with this one year signing. I would not be surprised to see Jeffrey traded away before the deadline this year. For now he will be an extra body and provide Shero a cheap NHL caliber player in case of injury.


That’s all for now

Thanks for reading!


You can find my non-Penguin related articles over at HockeyHurts.com

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