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Sidney Crosby Update

October 12, 2016, 3:45 PM ET [101 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Here is today's Sidney Crosby update.

He once again skated before the team practiced. He went hard yesterday and was back at it today. That was the first indication there were no further symptoms to this point.




The session went so well he joined the team at regular practice.




Crosby took a few line rushes with Conor Sheary and Patric Hornqvist. He was wearing a non-contact jersey. He also took a few reps on the #1 power play unit.

These are all encouraging signs. My personal prediction is that he will not miss much game action with the current concussion. He will however miss at least one game. Head Coach Mike Sullivan has ruled him out of the opener against Washington.

Crosby will need to practice with contact before being cleared for game action. That probably isn't far off if things continue to go well with his practice sessions.

Here is what the lines looked like at practice today.




Bryan Rust returned to practice but he has also been ruled out of the opener.

We shall see what they do with the lines tomorrow. I would definitely put Hornqvist with Malkin and Kunitz to get the most out of him. You then have two options with Cullen. Play him with his line from last year (Kuhnhackl/Fehr) or play him with Sheary and Wilson. Either way it looks like Sestito will slot his way into the lineup somewhere and that isn't something I thought I would be saying for opening night. Not ideal.

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In advance of the season opener the Pittsburgh Penguins got active on the waiver wire. They claimed Mike Condon from the Montreal Canadiens. Condon is a former Wheeling Nailer and started the majority of the games for Carey Price last season.

I predict this roster move will have very little consequence on the team this season. Condon was brought in to back up Marc-Andre Fleury until Matt Murray is healthy again. Murray injured himself on September 19th against Russia during the World Cup of Hockey. His injury recovery has been pegged anywhere from 3-6 weeks. Pittsburgh only has one set of back to back games in October. Given Fleury’s previous workload as an NHL starter it would be logical to deduce that Condon will probably only get one start in a Penguins uniform. That is probably good news because he was below average during his time with Montreal last year. Out of 48 goalies that played 1,000 minutes last year he ranked 42 in EVSV% at .914. Losing Carey Price for the year took Montreal out of Stanley Cup contention, but it didn’t have to take them out of playoff contention and it did.

Tristan Jarry is capable of watching Marc-Andre Fleury play almost every game from the bench but that really would do nothing for him. He was sent down to be the Baby Penguins starting goaltender.

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Hockey Graphs ranked the top 50 players in the NHL this season




Sidney Crosby was basically a unanimous number one overall selection.

Evgeni Malkin ranked 11th overall and was the seventh ranked center (Crosby, McDavid, Bergeron, Kopitar, Tavares, Seguin)

Kris Letang was 28th overall and is the eighth ranked defenseman (Karlsson, Hedman, Subban, Giordano, Doughty, Ekman-Larsson, Burns)

There were no other Penguins on the list. Phil Kessel ranked 65th and Patric Hornqvist ranked 69th.

Pittsburgh was one of nine teams to get votes for five separate players in these rankings. Washington, Chicago, and St. Louis had six players.

Here are some other divisional projections




Banner night tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!
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