By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Peter Diana/ Post-Gazette
Sidney Crosby
To this point -- and things could change if they're still playing hockey at Mellon Arena weeks from now -- Sidney Crosby's third NHL season has been defined by three words.
High ankle sprain.
The debilitating injury, and the way the Penguins rallied in their captain's absence, have had a strong effect on Crosby, one that has him feeling strong in every way as the team closes the regular season today in Philadelphia and heads into the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday or Thursday.
"Mentally, with the injury, it was good and bad," he said yesterday. "I had two months [off]. It was awful. But at the same time I think I'm as hungry as I could be."
Crosby's right ankle bent too far as he slid into the end boards after a first-period scoring chance Jan. 18 in a 3-0 home loss against Tampa Bay. He missed the next 21 games, returned for three, starting with a March 4 game at Tampa Bay, then sat out another seven before returning for good four games and 10 days ago.
Sitting out with his first long-term injury tore the 20-year-old apart.
He was thrilled that center Evgeni Malkin blossomed and the rest of the team followed Malkin's lead to go 16-8-4 in the games he missed on its way to an Atlantic Division title. And immensely sad he missed out on the run.
"When you have an injury, when you lose, you want to help, and when you win, it [stinks] that you're not a part of it. You grow up your whole life playing on a team and trying to help each other and being happy for guys, but you want to be a part of it, too. When you're injured, you show up at the rink an hour and a half before the team to get your treatment. You're not with them. You don't travel with them. It's kind of like you're on the outside looking in, and it's not easy.
"I never took [playing] for granted. I never did. But you don't realize how much you love something until it's gone. For me, two months felt like forever."
Crosby has the drive and talent to have won the NHL scoring title and league MVP award last season and the intelligence to realize players have gone through such injuries and worse.
That didn't make it any more comfortable, given the cranky nature of a high ankle sprain.
"Each day, I never knew if I was going to wake up and it was going to be sore, even if I didn't do anything," he said. "Mentally, it's a grind. I've only played 53 games, but, with an injury like this, that's harder than playing 90 games, especially when you want to play so bad."
When he came back at Tampa, Crosby overdid it -- not with the ankle but with giddiness. So much so that he had a talk with himself.
"I remember being like, 'You've got to calm down,' " he said. "I remember thinking, 'Try to break stride once in a while. You don't have to skate full speed for 60 minutes.' I was just so eager to be a part of it."
After three games, the ankle acted up, and he pulled himself out of the lineup. In his fourth game back after that, a ramped-up, physical, 4-2 win against Philadelphia at home Wednesday, Crosby again reached for the reins.
"I found myself wanting to compete so bad," he said, "especially early on in the game. I was wasting a lot of energy trying to hit guys and things like that. [I told myself,] 'You know what? You've been through a few intense games before, so just play the same way. Settle down a bit.' "
He burned the Flyers for two goals and an assist, giving him 24 goals, 72 points this season and leaving him one goal shy of 100 for his career. He figures games like that should prepare him and the rest of the team for the postseason.
Looking back to the start of the season, Crosby feels good about the state of the mostly young team.
"We just matured," he said. "We still have a lot to learn, there's no doubt. We still have to mature more. That comes with experience.
"But throughout the season we were facing a lot of adversity. We had tons of injuries. It would have been easy to slip out of the playoffs and say we ran into problems and it just wasn't our year, but I don't think anybody accepted that.
"We won different kinds of games, too. We won games that were 6-4. We won games that were 2-1, where we had to be patient. We won physical games, too. That's all part of learning.
"We went through all that this year and, hopefully, that's something we can carry on into the playoffs."
Canadiens win, 3-1
Montreal keeps the pressure on the Penguins in the race for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference by beating Toronto, 3-1, last night. It forces the Penguins to win today in Philadelphia -- the final day of the regular season.
First published on April 6, 2008 at 12:00 am
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