Sidney Crosby: Kyle Dubas must learn from his mistakes

Let’s talk about Sid The Kid for a moment.

During his #2 and #3 NHL contracts, Sidney Crosby signed a new deal a year to the day before his contract expired, on July 1 of the year before.

But now, for the first time in his career, Crosby is less than a year away from being a free agent, and he still hasn’t signed a contract.

Is this the end of the world? Of course not. After all, he still has 11 and a half months left before becoming a free agent, which still leaves the Penguins plenty of time to offer him what he wants.

It feels like it’s coming, but nothing is official yet. And inevitably, this opens the door to speculation.

This led TVA Sports to write the following piece on Kyle Dubas and his handling of big contracts during his time as a Maple Leafs executive,

And basically, we understand that the main interested party considers that he could have settled the contracts of Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner more quickly in 2018 and 2019.

That’s what Dubas said in a book to be published later in 2024. It’ll be called The Franchise: The Business Of Building Winning Teams… and that’s even though he’s never built a winning team.

The point is, he can’t make that mistake with Sidney Crosby. Nor can he sign him, having done so in the midst of controversy. It has to be done by the book.

Otherwise, Penguins fans will be angry. And since the path the hockey president wants to take (that of trying to win with an old core) is already dangerous, he can’t afford to alienate fans by mishandling the #87 file.

To be continued.