TORONTO — The Pittsburgh Penguins are within the playoffs for the sixteenth consecutive season — the longest lively streak of any crew within the 5 main skilled crew sports activities in North America — largely as a result of Sidney Crosby, their enduring star heart, quietly had probably the greatest seasons within the N.H.L. at age 34.
Solely seven present N.H.L. gamers have been at it longer than Crosby, and 6 others got here into the league with him in 2005. Apart from Alex Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals ahead who’s chasing Wayne Gretzky’s profession targets report, no participant of Crosby’s age or with 17 seasons underneath his skates has been as dominant.
Elite athletes like Tom Brady (44), Tiger Woods (46), Serena Williams (40) and Rafael Nadal (35) have labored to remain on the high of their sports activities, with various levels of success. Crosby, who has gained three Stanley Cups and a boatload of particular person awards in a bodily brutal recreation that turns into quicker and youthful by the yr, has been paying consideration.
Nobody has watched Crosby extra carefully than Andy O’Brien. A power and conditioning coach, O’Brien met Crosby at a summer time hockey college when the participant was 13. This summer time shall be their twenty second working collectively in Crosby’s low season residence close to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
However Crosby doesn’t rush towards summer time. The Penguins opened their first-round playoff collection in opposition to the Rangers on Tuesday evening at Madison Sq. Backyard.
“It’s unimaginable that he’s nonetheless one of many high gamers within the league at his age,” mentioned O’Brien, who is predicated in Toronto and likewise works as a high-performance guide with the Florida Panthers.
“I don’t take a look at it as he’s peaked and now we’re simply making an attempt to decelerate that decline,” O’Brien mentioned. “He’s able to placing collectively a season that’s higher than any season he’s ever had. He’s relentless at his development as an athlete, prepared to adapt and discover new methods to be efficient. And the very best measuring stick that we’ve got is what he’s doing on the ice.”
What Crosby did in 69 video games this yr was rating 31 targets (9 of them game-winners) and make 53 assists, and he endured in a sport that exacts a toll on the physique. His 84 factors tied him for the crew lead with left wing Jake Guentzel, who’s seven years youthful than Crosby and performed seven extra video games.
Crosby missed the beginning of the season due to wrist surgical procedure and Covid-19, however has been terrific since. 5 hundred of his friends picked him final week because the league’s most full participant. And he nonetheless makes it look simple.
“It’s a must to handle your physique a little bit bit extra,” Crosby mentioned. “It’s extra years of wear and tear and tear, and on high of that, you’ve bought to seek out methods to regulate your recreation. There’s tons of little issues you are able to do. However caring for your physique is the largest one.”
Crosby, chosen by the Penguins first total in 2005 and heaped with expectations to steer the N.H.L. out of its lockout season, performed his 1,000th profession recreation in February 2021 and scored his five hundredth purpose one yr later. Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016 and 2017, and quite a few Hart, Conn Smythe, Artwork Ross and Rocket Richard trophies, two Olympic gold medals, greater than 100 factors in six seasons and probably the most playoff factors of any lively participant, make up his profession. Thus far.
“He by no means has arrived at some extent the place he says, ‘OK, that’s ok, I simply want to remain there,’” O’Brien mentioned. “He continually pushes himself.”
Crosby nonetheless barges into the corners, battles alongside the boards and scores nifty targets — on breakaways and tic-tac-toes, from the again door and behind the web, on one knee and on his behind and off a goalie’s head. Almighty skating and sleight-of-hand playmaking can, straight away, give option to manhandling opposing gamers. He’s a strongman and an escape artist who can thunder forward, flip this fashion and that, burst into an open spot and discover the web, which he had achieved 586 instances, together with within the playoffs, getting into Tuesday.
It’s exceptional contemplating his damage historical past: a excessive ankle sprain from crashing into the boards in 2008; devastating concussions that brought about him to overlook the majority of two seasons in 2011 and 2012; a damaged jaw in 2013; one other concussion in apply in 2016; core muscle surgical procedure in 2019; a left wrist damage from 2014 that required two surgical procedures up to now two years.
‘His athleticism is pretty much as good because it’s ever been.’
Crosby, O’Brien mentioned, has two explicit presents, the primary being a capability to tolerate an unusually excessive workload.
“He can put in these loopy lengthy exercises with excessive intensities after which go on the ice and do the very same factor,” O’Brien mentioned. “After which really feel able to go the subsequent day. I’ve had different shoppers of mine which have tried to hold with him, they usually simply can’t get better in a approach that’s regular for him.”
O’Brien mentioned Crosby has a “extremely parasympathetic nervous system” — which permits for a low coronary heart fee and for his physique to remain in a state of restoration longer. “He’s excellent at relaxation, so when he’s not coaching, his nervous system is in a extremely calm state.”
Crosby, who has prioritized power all through his profession, turns 35 in August. “His total athleticism — pace, agility, stability — is pretty much as good because it’s ever been,” O’Brien mentioned.
O’Brien mentioned that Crosby had an uncommon capacity to function at most bodily exertion whereas skating, carrying the puck and absorbing and delivering hits, and that his low coronary heart fee helped him cognitively.
“Quite a lot of athletes that suppose the sport at a excessive degree and are actually good at processing sometimes are typically slower athletes,” O’Brien mentioned. “He has the very best of each worlds.”
‘You’re all the time in search of inspiration.’
Crosby is a big fan of different sports activities, like soccer, golf and particularly tennis — enjoying and watching — and he research how ageing superstars endure.
“You take a look at Nadal, he’s only a horse and so decided along with his work ethic,” Crosby mentioned. “He all the time appears to be like like he’s working onerous. Then a man like Federer, nothing appears to be like clumsy. He’s so sleek and doesn’t seem like he’s working fairly as onerous despite the fact that he’s. Each have had success. You’re all the time in search of inspiration.”
O’Brien mentioned tennis and ice hockey have been remarkably comparable. (Search for Roger Federer on ice skates.)
Footwork — lunging, planting, crossing over, pivoting and fixed rotations by means of the trunk — can assist develop motor expertise for hockey. “The higher physique is consistently doing one thing completely different from the decrease physique in each,” O’Brien mentioned.
From 2015 to 2020, O’Brien labored with the Penguins as their director of sport science and efficiency. Seeing Crosby throughout the season allowed for nuanced changes to Crosby’s workload, restoration, diet, sleep and stress response, “his entire physiology,” O’Brien mentioned.
Then there’s the hockey expertise half. Crosby mentioned he had discovered to play beneath the puck extra, and with extra persistence, reining within the inherent want for ahead movement till the appropriate time. “When you’re not beneath the puck, particularly on the defensive facet, it may be a protracted evening,” he mentioned. “While you depend on your pace, you all the time really feel such as you’re going to get an opportunity. Discovering that stability takes time studying.”
‘You simply respect the years.’
Crosby’s mother and father, Trina and Troy, have been in Pittsburgh for his five hundredth purpose. The milestone forged a protracted lens on their son’s profession and what has occurred alongside it. Lately, each of Crosby’s grandmothers have died, as did his yellow Labrador, Sam, who was 15.
“You simply respect the years,” Trina mentioned. “There have been all of those hockey video games and all of those particular instances, and life is occurring in between. That’s a lot of what I noticed because the years go by. He’s had substantial accidents, and he will get to rise up daily and do one thing that he completely loves.”
Crosby has three years remaining on a $104.4 million contract that he signed when he was 24. For the sake of superstition, it has all the time made for a wage cap hit of $8.7 million per season. (He wears No. 87 for his delivery date, Aug. 7, 1987.)
“I simply attempt to take a look at it one yr at a time,” he mentioned. “I hold making an attempt to study issues all year long, however then you definately attempt to determine the place you’ve bought to be higher and use the summer time to do this. I really feel actually good, I wish to actually emphasize this. However yeah, you’re conscious.
“I imply, I’m loads nearer to the top than I’m within the center. I perceive that, however you attempt to hold that very same mind-set you’ve had all alongside.”
