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Anytime the Penguins are on the ice, and Sidney Crosby isn’t, it’s always an initial jolt of dread and fear. Such a feeling welcomed Pens’ nation on Saturday morning.
Sidney Crosby is not practicing today for some reason. #Penguins players who are not skating in today's game in Columbus are practicing right now in Cranberry. He's not among them.
— Matt Vensel (@mattvensel) September 21, 2019
Uh oh. Crosby also hasn’t made his 2019 preseason game debut yet, while Evgeni Malkin has. Then again, Kris Letang also hasn’t dressed for a preseason game yet either.
Still, according to all reports and eyes, Crosby hasn’t had any obvious or major issues and was even on the ice late after practice on Wednesday afternoon getting some extra drill work in and looking pretty sharp.
Sidney Crosby doing some drills at practice today. The Best part was watching the franchise player skating around the rink picking up all the pucks at the end of practice... pic.twitter.com/t6YyokXyaF
— Brian Ledoux (@crazyglue33) September 18, 2019
But since Crosby wasn’t out there today at practice, of course coach Mike Sullivan (who is in Columbus with the group playing this afternoon against the Blue Jackets) was asked to address the absence of Crosby. According to Sullivan the Pens are “managing his workload throughout training camp” and said “no” to an injury.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said that Sidney Crosby skated on his own today. “We’re just managing his workload throughout training camp. That was part of the game plan.”
— Mike DeFabo (@MikeDeFabo) September 21, 2019
Asked if there’s an injury to manage, Sullivan said “no.” https://t.co/LFRF6WfmvG
Maybe it’s just getting older and keeping Crosby fresh by keeping him off the ice at times this preseason, but it certainly looks like the Pens’ plan for gearing up for the season has considered “workload” and that today meant not practicing. The Pens play in Detroit tomorrow after today’s matinee with Columbus. The Pens’ roster for that game hasn’t been announced yet, but we’ll go way out on a limb and predict you probably won’t be seeing Sid tomorrow in Detroit either.
Best news is a brief but firm dismissal of injury concerns, which though Sullivan can be vague with updates, he isn’t in the business of outright lying about entire statuses, especially in the preseason.
We’ll see just when the Pens have plans for Sid to make his preseason debut. Bottom line: it’s a non-update update on Crosby today, which is probably the best news that you didn’t even know that you needed to hear. Carry on.