Brian Boyle #22 celebrates his goal with Dominic Moore #28, Anton Stralman #6 and Derek Dorsett #15 of the New York Rangers during the first period against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Seven of the Second Round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Consol Energy Center on May 13, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/NHLI via Getty Images)
The next big thing on your Penguins calendar — I mean after the firings — arrives July 14, when the club holds its ice crew auditions.
You know, the bright, well-scrubbed young people who zip onto the ice during the breaks and hustle end-to-end, cleaning up the snow. One note: Sidney Crosby will not be auditioning; he no longer skates fast enough.
It would be terrible if the Penguins concealed a Crosby injury throughout these 2014 playoffs.
It would be worse if they have not.
Because if the Captain isn’t hurt, then he simply skated indifferently, fanned on shots, mishandled the puck and was just awful enough to take Dan Bylsma’s team out of these playoffs prematurely. That he will probably take Bylsma’s Penguins career with it, along with perhaps general manager Ray Shero’s, along with who knows whom or what else, all while collecting something just this side of $9 million is more than enough to remove him as the so-called face of the NHL.
“I think any time you go into an elimination game you think about the possibility of it being the last game,” said Bylsma, sitting at the postgame podium in a dark blue suit marked with chalk windows you could see the doom through. “You go into this thinking one team is going on and one team is going home, so yes, you think about it, but here again, I had a ton of confidence in our team in winning this hockey game.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/gene-collier/2014/05/14/Gene-Collier-Long-offseason-ahead-for-Crosby-and-Penguins/stories/201405140109#ixzz31gcG9ZLW
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