Sidney Crosby, 17 seasons later, is ready to screw up the NHL playoffs


TORONTO — The Pittsburgh Penguins are in the playoffs for the 16th straight season, the longest active streak of any team in North America’s top five professional team sports, in large part because Sidney Crosby, their enduring star center, had a of the best seasons. in the NHL at age 34.

Only seven current NHL players have been around longer than Crosby, with six others coming into the league with him in 2005. With the exception of Alex Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals forward who is chasing Wayne Gretzky’s career goalscoring record. No player Crosby’s age or 17 seasons under his skids has been as dominant.

Elite athletes like Tom Brady (44), Tiger Woods (46), Serena Williams (40), and Rafael Nadal (35) have worked to stay at the top of their sports, with varying degrees of success. Crosby, who won three Stanley Cups and a host of individual awards in a physically brutal game that gets faster and younger every year, has been paying attention.

No one has watched Crosby more closely than Andy O’Brien. As a strength and conditioning coach, O’Brien met Crosby at summer hockey school when the player was 13 years old. This summer will be their 22nd working together at Crosby’s off-season home near Halifax, Nova Scotia.

But Crosby isn’t rushing into summer. The Penguins opened their first-round playoff series against the Rangers Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, winning 4-3 in triple overtime on an Evgeni Malkin goal. Crosby had two assists.

“It’s amazing that he’s still one of the best players in the league at his age,” said O’Brien, who lives in Toronto and also works as a performance consultant with the Florida Panthers.

“I don’t see it peaking and now we’re just trying to slow that decline,” O’Brien said. “He’s capable of putting together a season that’s better than any season he’s ever had. He is relentless in growing him as an athlete, willing to adapt and find new ways to be effective. And the best measuring stick we have is what he’s doing on the ice.”

What Crosby did in 69 games this year was score 31 goals (nine of them game winners) and dish out 53 assists, and he persisted in a sport that takes a toll on the body. His 84 points tied him for the team lead with left wing Jake Guentzel, who is seven years younger than Crosby and played seven more games.

Crosby missed the start of the season due to wrist surgery and Covid-19, but has been fantastic ever since. Five hundred of his teammates voted him the best player in the league last week. most complete player. and he still makes it look easy.

“You have to take care of your body a little bit more,” Crosby said. “It’s more years of wear and tear, and on top of that, you have to find ways to adjust your game. There are tons of little things you can do. But taking care of your body is the most important thing.”

Crosby, picked by the Penguins for the first time overall in 2005 and brimming with expectations to lead the NHL out of its lockout season, played his 1000th career game in February 2021 and scored his goal 500 one year later. Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016 and 2017, and numerous Hart, Conn Smythe, Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies, two olympic gold medals100+ points in six seasons and the most playoff points of any active player, make up his career. Up to this point.

“He’s never gotten to a point where he’s like, ‘Okay, that’s good enough, I just need to stay there,’” O’Brien said. “He constantly pushes himself.”

Crosby still bursts into the corners, fights alongside the boards and scores clever goals, in escapades Y three in a row, from the back door Y behind the net, on one knee Y on his butt Y from the head of a goalkeeper. Almighty skating and sleight of hand can, in an instant, give way to manhandling opposing players. He is a strong man and an escape artist who can get ahead, spin from side to side, burst into an open spot and find the net, which he had done 586 times, including in the playoffs, before Tuesday.

It’s notable considering his injury history: a sprained upper ankle crashing into the boards in 2008; devastating concussions that caused him to miss the better part of two seasons in 2011 and 2012; a broken jaw in 2013; another concussion in practice in 2016; core muscle surgery in 2019; a 2014 left wrist injury that required two surgeries in the past two years.

Crosby, O’Brien said, has two particular gifts, the first being the ability to tolerate an unusually high workload.

“He can do these crazy long workouts with high intensities and then go out on the ice and do the exact same thing,” O’Brien said. “And then feel ready to go the next day. I’ve had other clients of mine who have tried to hang out with him, and they just can’t bounce back in a way that’s normal for him.”

O’Brien said that Crosby has a “highly parasympathetic nervous system,” which allows for a slow heart rate and for his body to stay in a recovery state longer. “He’s very good at resting, so when he’s not training, his nervous system is really calm.”

Crosby, who has prioritized strength throughout his career, turns 35 in August. “His athleticism in general (speed, agility, balance) is as good as ever,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said that Crosby had an unusual ability to operate at maximum physical exertion while skating, loading the puck, and absorbing and delivering hits, and that his low heart rate helped him cognitively.

“A lot of athletes who think about the game at a high level and are really good at processing tend to be slower athletes,” O’Brien said. “He has the best of both worlds.”

Crosby is a big fan of other sports, such as football, golf, and especially tennis, he plays and watches, and studies how aging superstars survive.

“You look at Nadal, he’s just a horse and so determined with his work ethic,” Crosby said. “It always seems like he is working hard. So a guy like Federer, nothing looks clumsy. He is so smart and it doesn’t look like he is working that hard even though he is. Both have been successful. You are always looking for inspiration.”

O’Brien said that tennis and ice hockey were remarkably similar. (Seek Roger Federer on ice skates.)

Footwork (plunging, planting, crossing, pivoting, and constant rotations through the trunk) can help develop motor skills for hockey. “The upper body is constantly doing something different than the lower body in both of them,” O’Brien said.

From 2015 to 2020, O’Brien worked with the Penguins as director of sports science and performance. Watching Crosby during the season allowed for nuanced adjustments to Crosby’s workload, recovery, nutrition, sleep and stress response, “his whole physiology,” O’Brien said.

Then there’s the hockey skills part. Crosby said he had learned to play more under the puck and with more patience, curbing the inherent need to push forward until the right moment. “If you’re not under the puck, especially on the defensive end, it can be a long night,” he said. “When you trust your speed, you always feel like you’re going to have a chance. Finding that balance takes learning time.”

Crosby’s parents, Trina and Troy, were in Pittsburgh for his 500th goal. The milestone shed a broad perspective on their son’s career and what has happened throughout it. In recent years, both of Crosby’s grandmothers have died, as has her yellow lab, Samwho was 15 years old.

“You just appreciate the years,” Trina said. “There were all these hockey games and all these special moments, and life is happening in between. That’s a lot of what I saw as the years go by. She’s had major injuries and she gets up every day and does something that she loves.”

Crosby has three years left on a $104.4 million contract he signed when he was 24 years old. For the sake of superstition, he has always been a salary cap reached $8.7 million by season (He uses the number 87 for his date of birth, August 7, 1987.)

“I just try to look at it one year at a time,” he said. “I keep trying to learn things throughout the year, but then you try to figure out where you have to be better and you use the summer to do it. I feel very good, I want to emphasize this. But yes, you are aware.

“I mean, I’m much closer to the end than the middle. I get it, but you try to keep the same mindset you’ve had all along.”




Reference-www.nytimes.com

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