Sidney Crosby ducked into an empty dressing room at the Ice Den rink in Coral Springs, Fla. He carefully leaned his two practice twigs on the stick rack then took a seat. He anxiously eyed up the pesky reporter who waited him out.
This was deadline day, with trade rumors still swirling around the Penguins. Some teammates were already on the two buses humming out back, nervously checking their phones. Crosby braced for questions about the club’s direction.
He let his guard down and flashed a grin when he heard the topic of the day.
“No problem,” the future Hall of Famer said. “Always love talking about sticks.”
And that’s a good thing, because no NHLer encounters more fascination over the shape and pattern of his stick from fans, media and even his fellow players. Just last month at the All-Star festivities, young Dallas sniper Jason Robertson gushed that he couldn’t wait to check out Crosby’s signature curve.
But how did Crosby come to bend his stick blade like that, flat from the heel to the middle of the blade then barely twisting to open up ever so slightly? We asked him to reminisce about his very first stick and how it evolved from there.
Like most players from his generation, Crosby’s first one was a hand-me-down. His dad, Troy, cut one of his lefty sticks down and handed it to the boy.
“The blade was almost as long as the shaft of the stick,” Sid said with a laugh.
He fondly remembered two of his first sticks, both wooden. One was a white and blue Canadian. The other was a Titan model. He thinks that one was red.
His first composite stick was an Easton, made out of aluminum. He still shakes his head in disbelief thinking how heavy that was compared to today’s twigs.
“It was like the Gretzky silver one, but it was red,” he said. “I was about 12.”
He switched to an Easton Z-Bubble in his early teens. Then Forbes MacPherson, a cousin who played with the Shreveport Mudbugs of the Central Hockey League, shipped him a Branches shaft that was the stiffest he has ever used.
“My cousin would send me blades. The good thing was he used a pretty straight [blade]. But you could curve them,” Crosby said. “So even if the curve was a little big, you could straighten it out. I would just curve them on our stove.”
Crosby was rocking a Clarke or Modano curve then. Dating back to his first years on the ice, he has always preferred a blade that was just slightly curved.
At times, he “messed around” with bigger curves that make it easier to execute toe drags and whip harder wrist shots on net. But he quickly switched back.
“It’s just something that I became so used to,” he said. “It is unique, and obviously I’m comfortable on my backhand. That’s a big reason why I’ve used it.”
Relatively speaking, his stick hasn’t evolved much during his 18-year career. That won’t surprise hardcore hockey fans who know he has worn the same jockstrap his whole career and has yet to convert to removable skate blades.
He used a two-piece Sher-Wood stick with a wooden blade in his first few seasons and was one of the league’s last adopters of the one-piece technology that is the norm today. He finally made the switch, with much fanfare, in 2009.
His blade is basically the same. In the past, he tinkered with the lie of his stick but said that threw off all of his mechanics. One change that stuck was he went down a little bit in shaft stiffness over the years, from 110 to near 100 now.
“As far as the flex and the lie, taking faceoffs has a lot to do with that. So there’s a lot of reasons. It’s not just stick-handling or shooting or one specific thing. There’s a lot that goes into it,” he said. “So it’s not easy to change at this point.”
He has used a CCM Ribcor Reckoner for several years now, resisting the urge to upgrade to newer models. But those snazzy sticks have caught his eye.
“Trust me,” Crosby said, “when I see some of the guys shoot and see the different flexes and the kick points and all the technology that’s in sticks now, it’s hard not to want to play with it a little bit. Yeah, it has really come a long way.”
Crosby gets a kick out of the obsession over his sticks. But when people ask him about that curve, he is always up for talking about this tools of the trade.
“To me, it’s just normal. But it’s funny to see other guys react to it or ask how I use that,” he said. “A lot of guys now use a very similar curve. There’s a couple different ones, but a lot of guys use similar stick curves that they grew up with.”
POINT SHOTS
• Crosby is equally intrigued by the curves that his NHL peers have used. He said two of the more unique ones belong to Ryan O’Reilly and John LeClair.
LeClair was with the Penguins for Crosby’s first two years. Crosby said he has one of his sticks at his home and often shows people his “pretty wild curve.”
“It was straight then halfway it just completely flipped open. It was like a spatula,” Crosby said. “I love showing guys that would have never seen anything like that before. Honestly, he was so good at tipping pucks and all those little plays around the net, [and] on his backhand. That stick was made for him, for sure.”
• I’ll share one more tidbit from my latest chat with Sid. When his older cousin, Forbes, played down in Shreveport, La., Crosby would often tune in to his games. The play-by-play man for the Mudbugs? Pittsburgh’s own Steve Mears.
• I was surprised to see Mike Sullivan immediately play Dmitry Kulikov ahead of Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Joseph is hardly perfect but has shown promise. Analytics suggest he is pretty impactful. I’m sure one aspect is they want to know what they have in the new guy, Kulikov. Hopefully, Joseph isn’t just brushed aside.
• It might make a veteran or two grumble, but Sullivan should tinker with his lines and move Jason Zucker or Bryan Rust down to the third line to try to create more balance. Their top-heavy construction could become even more problematic in the playoffs, when there will be an even greater emphasis on matchups.
• Alex Nylander is in roster limbo due to the cap restraints created by Ron Hextall. But Hextall’s decision to deal Sam Lafferty for Nylander was a smart bet on talent that might pay off. The trade worked out for Lafferty, too. A win-win.
THREE STARS
3. Alex Nylander. In his Penguins debut, Nylander had an assist with a plus-2 rating and earned positive reviews from Sullivan about his play away from the puck. He has a chance to build on that and seize a permanent spot in Pittsburgh.
2. Sidney Crosby. After the loss to New York, the captain had five points in his last four games. His lone goal was a big one, that wicked one-timer that won it for them Tuesday. He is still well within striking distance of a 100-point season.
1. Jason Zucker. Seven goals in the last six games entering the weekend, including two that sparked that comeback over Columbus. Can the Penguins clone this guy? Find a few more players with his type of fire and they will be cooking.
YOU ASKED ...
Can the penguins truly be cup contenders again with Sullivan at the helm? (Yes, I'm aware the bottom 6 and goaltending aren't his fault. Just seems like even great coaches have an expiration date)
— Ryan Z (@LetsGoPens_67) March 9, 2023
I think they can win another Cup with Sullivan, yeah. He’s one of the NHL’s top six or seven coaches. He has earned the respect and trust of their stars. And he has the right temperament for a veteran team with sky-high expectations. He leans on Crosby and Co. to lead but has a feel for when to assert himself.
That said, it might take tactical tweaks and more flexibility to get the Penguins back to the top of the mountain. The defining characteristic of his system is speed, and that is supposed to show up in puck pursuit as much as the transition attack. This aging team no longer has the ability to put constant stress on opponents.
So that might have to change, along with his reluctance to rely on young players. But I’d bet Sullivan wins another Cup, whether it be here or elsewhere.
STAT N’AT
22 – Power play goals allowed by the Penguins in the past 22 games. Their penalty kill as of Friday was the league’s fifth-most porous this calendar year.
FINAL BUZZER
Tristan Jarry’s play from here on out will determine whether the Penguins make a surprising run into the NHL’s final four and if he will earn big bucks here.
It’s been a strange season for Jarry, who has been in out of the lineup. He sat out an important game at Florida last weekend due to illness, something Sullivan did not seem thrilled about. There was a report that he is dealing with a chronic hip injury. I haven’t heard that firsthand, but it’s obviously concerning.
Jarry is a talented goalie who still might not have hit his ceiling. But unless he finally shows the Penguins this spring that they can count on him when it matters, they can’t possibly commit to him as a bona fide No. 1 beyond this season.
Matt Vensel: mvensel@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mattvensel.
First Published: March 10, 2023, 2:34 p.m.