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Sidney Crosby skated in Pittsburgh today with 16 of his teammates for an informal practice, which means there's news about the wrist injury that we found out dogged him for the finals weeks of the season.
Crosby confirmed the wrist injury came against St. Louis in March from a Ryan Reaves hit.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_Trib) September 8, 2014
Crosby says his wrist was hurt on hit by Blues RW Ryan Reaves: "I just jammed it. It was caught under me."
— Dave Molinari (@MolinariPG) September 8, 2014
Already the internet has pin-pointed the collision, because the internet is really quick these days. All credit to Hockeybuzz's Ryan Wilson on twitter for finding it:
This is also the game that Evgeni Malkin broke his foot during, missing the rest of the regular season but returning for the playoffs to score 6 goals and 8 assists in 13 games. Crosby wasn't as lucky, scoring just 1 goal and adding 8 assists in the playoffs.
Down the stretch after the 1-0 loss to St. Louis, Crosby played in 9 more regular season games, scoring 2 goals (both in the same game, vs Chicago) and adding 7 assists.
This summer news leaked of the wrist injury, which Crosby downplayed as not needing surgery and wasn't the reason for his poor play. However, it does appear that it must have bothered him, specifically his shot, since he only scored goals in 2 of the final 22 games that he played in after getting hit by Reaves.
Crosby says he was "pretty close" to having wrist surgery before trying the injections that appear to have corrected his problem.
— Dave Molinari (@MolinariPG) September 8, 2014
Crosby says he's 100% now, and despite the scoring slump, let's remember that he dominated possession and still chipped in a bunch of assists down the stretch. Enough time has gone by to hope he's ready to get back to his old self for the 2014-15 season. The Pittsburgh Penguins are bound to have a lot of question marks- from their rookie NHL head coach to a vastly different blueline to how much output their supporting players give. One thing never in doubt is how good Crosby (or Malkin) will be, and that shouldn't be changing any time soon.