Sidney Crosby accused of playing dirty after frustrating 6-0 defeat to Rangers in home opener
Photo credit: Screenshot
During his team's opening game of the 2024-25 season, a frustrated Sidney Crosby made a few bad decisions in the heavy Pittsburgh Penguins defeat.
With their successful pre-season finale, the Penguins hoped to maintain some of the momentum. Rather, in their 2024-25 season opener on Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh faltered badly, falling to the New York Rangers 6-0.
The New York Rangers were thoroughly dominating the Penguins. With a 4-0 lead after two periods, the Rangers showed no mercy, and captain Sidney Crosby of the Pens had had enough.
After the Penguins' disastrous start to the new season saw four different players score goals for New York, a frustrated Crosby decided to cross-check Rangers star forward Mika Zibanejad, which resulted in a Rangers power play.
Fans were presumably complaining about Crosby's frustration from the penalty box, but they also accused him of playing dirty after he was previously seen chirping and swinging his stick at Victor Mancini, a rookie for the Rangers who wasn't afraid to respond to the Penguins star. Just moments before, the two had become entangled in front of New York's net.
Clearly, this is not how the Penguins and their captain had hoped to begin the 2024-25 season. Fans have been criticizing Crosby for his attitude and asking whether he regrets staying in Pittsburgh before the season began. Tristan Jarry has looked awful in between the pipes.
For the defending Metropolitan Division winners, Chris Kreider scored twice. New York, who outscored Pittsburgh and defeated the Penguins for the fifth time in their previous six meetings, also had goals from Sam Carrick, Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil, and Vincent Trocheck, with Igor Shesterkin stopping 29 shots.
For Pittsburgh, Jarry stopped 35 of the 41 shots he faced. In the first game of his 20th season, Penguins star Sidney Crosby was held without a point. Holding Evgeni Malkin without a point. With 498 goals and 798 assists in his career, the Russian star was in his 19th season of play.
«We wait, long offseason and long break, and we think we are ready to play, but we need to play better,» Evgeni Malkin said. «I mean, that was a real game, not exhibition. It's a tough loss and I hope tomorrow we play better. Long season. Stay together, it is the only way. We played against a good team, the Rangers. But stick together, get ready tomorrow and go to Detroit and change everything.»
After the game, they headed straight to Detroit. Pittsburgh plays the Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday night hoping for an immediate bounce back.
As for all the supporters, I beg all Pittsburgh Penguins fans to treasure every chance they get to see Sidney Crosby, no matter how the Penguins' season turns out.
| POLL | ||
10 OCTOBRE | 143 ANSWERS Sidney Crosby accused of playing dirty after frustrating 6-0 defeat to Rangers in home opener Do you think Sidney Crosby was playing dirty? | ||
| No, never | 33 | 23.1 % |
| He was just frustrated | 73 | 51 % |
| Just a bad game overall | 32 | 22.4 % |
| Yes | 5 | 3.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
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