Sidney Crosby stays committed to the Penguins during a rebuild that remains without an end date

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — Sidney Crosby's early days in the NHL, when every Pittsburgh Penguins training camp felt like a proving ground, are never far from his mind, particularly this time of year.

The early days have been gone for a while now. Yet there the Penguins’ captain was on Thursday, a month removed from his 38th birthday and with a not insignificant number of flecks of gray sprinkled in his hair, still finding a way to smile while bending over his stick following a series of laps at the end of the first practice of his 21st season.

“I think that’s important to have that enthusiasm,” Crosby said. “I remember being that guy, you know, and I hope I’m still somewhat that guy even though I’ve been around for a while.”

The question that Crosby and his team can't seem to escape, however, is for how much longer?

The future Hall of Famer and three-time Stanley Cup champion is under contract through next season and is adamant he has no intention of leaving the only NHL city he's ever known, even with the Penguins in the midst of a rebuild that general manager Kyle Dubas refuses to put a specific timeline on.

Pittsburgh hasn't reached the postseason since 2022 and hasn't won a playoff series since 2018. Expectations, externally anyway, remain low following a summer that was relatively quiet outside of the club hiring Dan Muse to replace longtime head coach Mike Sullivan, who now holds the same job with the New York Rangers.

Crosby, who has averaged at least a point a game in an NHL record 20 seasons, freely admits that watching the chase for the Stanley Cup go on without the Penguins remains difficult.

And while he has grown tired of constantly saying he has no plans to leave Pittsburgh, Crosby's longtime agent, Pat Brisson, raised eyebrows recently when he told The Athletic that Crosby's goal is to win “another Stanley Cup or two.”

Yet Dubas reiterated Thursday his goal remains to construct a team that returns the Penguins to where they were during the 2010s, when Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Co. were annually a threat to raise the Cup. Dubas has no plans to abandon that strategy by acquiring veteran players in hopes of merely sneaking into the postseason.

“I have a friend ... they’ll often say that shortcuts cut long runs short,” Dubas said, who later added, “we can't alter the course that we're on.”

And Crosby remains a vital part of that course, though there have been more than a few bends in the road since Dubas took over in the summer of 2023, the latest being the decision to move on from Sullivan after nearly 10 years and a pair of titles.

Enter Muse, a former NCAA Division III grinder whose ability to develop young talent helped him land his first head coaching job. Now the 43-year-old finds himself overseeing a team that's a mixture of franchise icons like Crosby, Malkin and Kris Letang and relative newcomers, some of whom weren't even in elementary school when the trio first shared the ice nearly two decades ago.

It can be a tricky balancing act, though Dubas reiterated his belief that Muse is the right man to help the Penguins finish the transition from one era to the next. The plan is to have more than a little overlap.

While Dubas has repeatedly refused to put any sort of specific date on when Pittsburgh's retooling will be complete, he is confident it will be while Crosby remains one of the NHL's best players, a testament to the player's inherent and notorious work ethic as much as it is Dubas' belief in his own ability to put together a championship roster.

In that way, Dubas sees similarities between Crosby and former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, who remained prolific into his mid-40s.

“(Sid) is a player that, if he plays until that age and at that level, it wouldn’t be surprising,” Dubas said. "He would downplay it. But I don’t think anybody else would be surprised if, years from now, he’s still playing at an elite level. No one puts into it more than he does.”

Crosby's commitment appears not to have waned in the slightest. The same goes for the notorious competitive streak that has fueled him since he was a prodigy growing up in Nova Scotia.

His only nod to Pittsburgh's shift in building toward the future is pointing out with a smile that the Penguins have considerable salary cap space this season, a rarity during the club's Cup-winning days in the 2010s when ownership would spend every dime available in pursuit of glory.

Crosby is well aware that not much is expected of a team that currently has far more questions than answers. He can't control that. What he can control is how he prepares, how he plays and how he leads.

He's encouraged by his early interactions with Muse and the familiar jolt of adrenaline that hit him when he skated onto the ice Thursday. He knows he has far more seasons behind him than ahead of him. He's trying to appreciate the time he has left, at least when he's not gasping for breath.

“You can’t be all reflective and think about that when you’re skating laps in training camp,” he said. “Training camp’s always an awesome time of year because everyone’s so happy to be back together and, you know, a fresh start. I don't think that changes.”

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