PITTSBURGH -- On Oct. 1, the final day of the Major League Baseball regular season, Boston Red Sox majority owner John Henry opted not to attend his team’s final game.
He had something more important to do.
On that particular day, Henry was in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, watching Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins practice at Cole Harbour Place, the arena the Penguins captain played in while growing up.
Henry, whose Fenway Sports Group purchased controlling interest of the Penguins in 2021, was fascinated to see the new-look Penguins.
He isn’t the only one.
Indeed, entering the 2023-24 NHL season, Pittsburgh is one of the most intriguing teams in the League. From a new general manager to a new supporting cast around Crosby, there’s a new fresh vibe around one of the NHL’s oldest cores.
“There’s some excitement around here for sure,” Crosby said. “We’re trying to give ourselves a chance to get back into the playoffs. That’s what you train all summer for. That’s what you work for. It’s the best time of year.
“Missing out last year was tough. You don’t want to feel like that again. You really don’t.”
For the first time in 17 NHL seasons together, Crosby, forward Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs after the Penguins went 40-31-11 last season, finishing one point behind the Florida Panthers for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
It left a bitter taste in their mouths, to be sure.
“[The disappointment] probably lasted a little bit longer this year, just because it's such a long offseason,” Crosby said. “Playoffs are just such a great time of year. You take it for granted, but when you're not in it, it's something you miss a lot.
“There's nothing like that as far as you know. The level of competition and just the competitiveness, the intensity and the adrenaline that comes in the playoffs.”
Crosby, Malkin, Letang and the new-look Penguins will turn the page from the unfulfilled goal of last season when they face off against the Chicago Blackhawks for the 2023-24 opener at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET: ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS). When they make their season debuts, they’ll become the longest-tenured trio in the history of the four major North American pro sports leagues (NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB), breaking the mark of 17 they share with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada (New York Yankees, 1995-2011).
While the game is being hyped as the NHL debut of Blackhawks uber-skilled forward Connor Bedard, the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, the focus will also be on the Penguins for various reasons.
Start with the fact that it will be the first regular-season game for Pittsburgh under the watch of Kyle Dubas, the former GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs who was hired as Penguins President of Hockey Operations on June 1.
The 37-year-old wanted to keep intact the team’s nucleus of players who just happened to be about the same age as him. Crosby and Letang are 36, Malkin 37. Understanding that the championship window is closing on these three potential Hall of Famers, he decided to revamp the team around them.
No addition created a bigger splash than Erik Karlsson, the reigning Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman. Pittsburgh acquired him Aug. 6 in a three-team trade that involved the San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens. Karlsson, at 33, is the baby of Pittsburgh’s core with Crosby, Letang and Malkin, and is coming off a 101-point season with the Sharks (25 goals, 76 assists).
For Crosby, who for months dealt with the frustration of missing the postseason, the addition of Karlsson made it clear that management was all in on pursuing the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship since 2017.
“It’s a big boost,” he said. “Obviously, when the general manager makes moves like that, I think it sends a message to the group that he believes in us, and he wants to give us every opportunity he can to win.
“Coming off the last year and it not happening, you know, things not going the way we want it to, I think to have that message and to reinforce that ‘Hey, you know, he believes in us,’ it resonates. And a lot of the guys he brought in are experienced guys and are just as hungry as we are. So I think we got a good combination. We have enough guys who have been through some tougher years here, combined with some guys who are really excited to get going.
“I just think it’s a great group.”
Karlsson notwithstanding, the list of new faces is impressive: forwards Noel Acciari, Reilly Smith, Lars Eller, Matt Nieto, Vinnie Hinostroza, defenseman Ryan Graves and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic.
But it all starts with Crosby, who set the tone on the first day of training camp by wallpapering one of the rookies into the boards with a clean hit. The message: If the captain has his foot on the gas pedal from Day 1, so should you.
Crosby then turned from teammate to tour guide in Cole Harbour, leading a three-day team-bonding exercise that culminated with a preseason game against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax. Part of the Nova Scotia visit involved an Amazing Race-like scavenger hunt that had Penguins players shucking oysters, eating haggis and shooting at the same dryer Crosby fired pucks at as a child.
He’s certainly had a big impression on Karlsson.
“Consummate captain, consummate competitor, and someone it’s a heck of a lot more fun playing with than against,” he said of Crosby.
“He's our leader. It should be a fun year.”
Starting Tuesday against Bedard and the Blackhawks.
