Sidney Crosby, Penguins open training camp with a lot of bodies — and a lot to prove

Matt Vensel / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For weeks, anxiety built in Pittsburgh and speculation swirled regarding Sidney Crosby’s future, which clarified Monday when he re-signed with the Penguins.

But even though the captain waited until two days before training camp to do it, his teammates never doubted whether he would sign on the dotted line.

“I don’t think I worried about it for one second. I don’t think I ever thought about it — unless I saw it from one of you guys on Twitter or something,” Bryan Rust said, grinning slyly as he engaged in friendly banter with local media.

With Crosby committed for the long haul and a bunch of new faces in the fold, the Penguins opened their 2024 training camp Wednesday in Cranberry.

The mood was light in the dressing room as the players took the ice together for the first time. But out on the rink, there was palpable intensity — with every man on the roster, from Crosby on down, having something to prove.

For Crosby and proud graybeards Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin, they are not ready to give way to the NHL’s next generation. For Ryan Graves and Tristan Jarry, they want to bounce back after disappointing seasons. For Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass, it is a chance to prove wrong their previous teams.

And as a group, the Penguins are not quite ready to fade into irrelevancy.

Told that Rust said Pittsburgh’s players were still “pissed off” about missing the playoffs for a second straight year, Mike Sullivan nodded in agreement.

“I’m not surprised that Rusty had that response,” the head coach said. “I’m sure a lot of our guys feel the same way, because they’re competitive guys.”

Many of the players from a team that sleepwalked through much of last season are back — and they claim they learned a lesson from their playoff miss. They fought in the final weeks but couldn’t overcome their early complacency.

“I thought last year it was going in the right direction. We just ran out of time,” Crosby said. “Hopefully we have that same urgency right from Game 1.”

He added that he is optimistic they can carry that momentum into 2024-25.

“I thought we stuck together,” Crosby said. “I’m hoping that experience, going through that, is something that we can build off at the start of the year.”

First, the Penguins will have to integrate another slew of summer additions.

Up front, the Penguins acquired veterans such as Hayes, Glass and Anthony Beauvillier. New on the blue line are Matt Grzelcyk and Sebastian Aho.

What do they have in common? Each got tossed aside by his previous team.

Grzelcyk and Aho were healthy scratches during the 2024 playoffs. And in the case of Hayes and Glass, their teams literally paid Pittsburgh to take them.

In addition to those reclamation projects, the Penguins in this training camp will have several prospects who were brought in by president Kyle Dubas this year, including Rutger McGroarty, Ville Koivunen and Vasily Ponomarev.

In terms of those sheer numbers, with 69 players invited to camp, Sullivan said it should be one of the most competitive camps during his nine-year tenure as coach. He acknowledged that more spots are up for grabs than usual.

“Everyone’s hungry,” Jarry added. “We have a lot of guys pushing for jobs and a lot of guys trying to make the team, so it’s a very competitive camp. There’s going to be a lot of hard work during this camp, and I think we’re going to be better coming out of it the start of this season than we were last.”

For years, the Penguins were penciled in as playoff locks. But after last season went awry — and then Dubas eschewed big splashes this offseason — they appear to be afterthoughts in the eyes of most people who make predictions.

Rust, the stealth social media user, said the Penguins can use that as fuel.

“Hopefully — knock on wood — as the year goes on, the narrative changes and some of those people are biting their tongues a little bit,” the winger said.

The tone-setter, as always, will be the kid from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

Now 37, Crosby had lots of life in his legs throughout his first practice of camp, outpacing prospects half his age as Sullivan pushed his players hard.

After he scored in a shootout to help his team take the daily scrimmage, Crosby sat at his stall, soaking in the scene at the start of his 20th NHL camp.

Psssssh. Did you really think he would want to be anywhere else but here?

“You have to know the person, the character, the way he’s built and how his mind works to understand the person that he is,” Letang said of Crosby’s latest team-friendly deal. “Did it surprise me? Not at all. Whether it was going to be July 1 or Oct. 13, I don’t care. In my mind, he’s going to wear those colors.”

Added Rust: “This place means a lot to Sid. Sid means a lot to this place.”