Penguins hit jackpot in NHL lottery
Dave Molinari | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | July 22, 2005
Jackpot: By the numbers 17 Age of prospective Penguins No. 1 pick Sidney Crosby 3 Age at which Crosby began skating 7 Age at which Crosby gave his first TV interview 16 Age at which he scored his first world junior championship goal—a record 92 Goals scored by Crosby in junior and national team games in 2004-05 219 Points scored by Crosby in junior and national team games in 2004-05 87 Uniform number worn by Crosby
Sidney Crosby is the most celebrated young hockey player since Mario Lemieux.
Probably the most special, too.
Not because he has exceptional vision and instincts and skill. Or because he's mature far beyond his 17 years. Or even because he can move effortlessly between English and French and is blessed with an engaging personality.
No, what makes Crosby—whose rights the Penguins locked up by winning the National Hockey League's draft lottery yesterday—so remarkable is that he has, and does, all of those things. And more.
For several years, he has been hailed as the future face of the NHL. Yesterday, he became the latest savior of the Penguins.
No one has stepped forward and offered to build the Penguins the arena they say is critical to their survival here, but securing a talent such as Crosby will ratchet up the profile and the value of the franchise.
"It's inconceivable that this team would be allowed to leave town, with the team we're going to have for the next 20 years," club president Ken Sawyer said. "We're going to have a great team."
The Penguins' prospects for a new arena are tied to the awarding of the license to operate a Downtown slots parlor. Whether adding Crosby to the roster will impress any bureaucrats in Harrisburg remains to be seen, but Lemieux said, "It's not going to hurt, obviously."
Crosby, not surprisingly, isn't focused on such big-picture issues just yet.
"My first goal is just making the team," he said.
He probably shouldn't fret about that. If the Penguins tried to keep him out of their lineup this fall, they might face a rebellion by their fans.
Consider the way the ticket-buying public responded to the news that the Penguins had won the lottery.
Penguins vice president of communications Tom McMillan said that even though word didn't get out until around 4:30 p.m., fans clogged the team's phone lines in an effort to purchase tickets.
"We were swamped with calls," he said.
So swamped that there was a 45-minute delay for calls to get through. And most fans apparently were willing to wait.
While there were no hard numbers on how many tickets the Penguins sold late yesterday afternoon, the crush of phone calls is the first anecdotal evidence of what Crosby will mean to the team.
And the Penguins shouldn't have to sell all that many extra season tickets to cover the cost of employing him. Under the new collective bargaining agreement that received final ratification from NHL owners yesterday, Crosby's salary on his first three-year contract will be capped at $850,000, although he could pad his earning with several million dollars in performance-based bonus earnings.
What's more, Crosby had an instant impact not only at the box office, but on the Penguins' personnel plans.
Because of his arrival, they won't feel compelled to seek the quality playmaker they had planned to pursue when the NHL's free-agent signing season begins Aug. 1. For that matter, the urgency to get a big-time goal-scorer declined considerably, too.
Crosby, general manager Craig Patrick suggested, is capable of handling both roles.
"I didn't anticipate we'd ever do it by winning a lottery," said Patrick, who laid out Crosby's job description this way: "A forward who can score goals and make plays and be a superstar."
That's a lot to expect of a player who won't turn 18 until Aug. 7, but then, the scouting reports on Crosby make it seem pretty realistic.
"People have said he's got the vision of a Wayne Gretzky and the goal-scoring and playmaking ability of Mario Lemieux," Patrick said.
Crosby's numbers back up those words, as he had 66 goals and 102 assists in 62 games with Rimouski in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League last season. He led the Oceanic to the title game in the Memorial Cup junior championships and helped to lead Canada to a gold medal at the world junior championships.
The Penguins entered the lottery with a 6.25 percent chance of winning it. Only Columbus, Buffalo and the New York Rangers had such "favorable" odds, but given the Penguins' star-crossed history, they hardly could have assumed Crosby was destined to join them.
"It's a very, very lucky day," Patrick said. "It's about time."
Crosby will be the most renowned prospect to join the Penguins since they drafted Lemieux first overall in 1984, three years before Crosby was born. And despite the gap in their ages—Lemieux will be 40 Oct. 5—the two seem genuinely fond of one another.
They trained together in Los Angeles last summer, and Crosby acknowledged being impressed by the way Lemieux treated him, especially away from the rink.
"He's a very nice guy," Crosby said. "And a great role model. To be able to play with him would be something really special. I'd really love to have that opportunity."
He'll get it, because Lemieux plans to play for at least one more season. And with a guy such as Crosby for a teammate, he might be tempted to stick around for several more.
Crosby is the crown jewel of the young talent the Penguins have been collecting for the past few years. If the Penguins can convince Russian center Evgeni Malkin, their No. 1 choice in 2004, to come to North America, they could have an exceptional 1-2 punch at center for a decade or more.
Crosby played against Malkin at the world junior championships and said, "I would definitely look forward to the opportunity to play with a guy like that."
Crosby's adjustment to the NHL likely will be easier than the one Malkin would face, because he wouldn't have to deal with language and cultural barriers. And while the Penguins surely will guard against force-feeding the league to Crosby, he also will be groomed as their go-to guy.
"Sidney won't have to carry the load early," Patrick said. "But you can see that three or four years down the road, Sidney is going to be the leader on this team and the one we'll rely on to make us a successful franchise."
Crosby, who did his first TV interview when he was 7, has been a celebrity in Canada for years. The combination of his exceptional skills and friendly demeanor off the ice have earned him seven-figure endorsement contracts with Gatorade and Reebok.
It says something about Crosby that he elected to watch the draft lottery in his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. He is family oriented, and that's reflected in his actions and values. And part of what made him so attractive to all 30 NHL teams.
"Because he's grounded, it gives a lot of the cynics not much ammunition," said E.J. McGuire of the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau.
Great hockey players often become inexorably linked to their sweater numbers. Lemieux will forever be associated with 66, Wayne Gretzky with 99.
Crosby's number is 87. That's an unusual one, and he chose it for an unusual reason: He was born Aug. 7, 1987, or 8/7/87.
Chances are that Penguins jerseys adorned with Crosby's number will be showing up in the region before long, based solely on what he has done in junior hockey. And the sales will skyrocket if Crosby lives up to the off-ice scouting report Patrick has gotten from members of his staff.
"They all say he's a wonderful human being," Patrick said. "Very well-spoken. Very humble. A perfect fit for our city, and our fans and our organization."












