Interesting stuff from former player Matthew Barnaby on Sirius XM radio on the relationship between Sidney Crosby and Mario Lemieux, and how it may be deteriorating:
https://soundcloud.com/siriusxmnhl/matthew-barnaby-on-the-potential-rift-between-sidney-crosby-mario-lemieux
“But the more and more I looked into it, the more I found out, people with the same sentiments that there’s a big falling out between Mario and Crosby. Now whether that pushes them to move him at some point? Whether he wants to move? That I don’t know.” -Matthew Barnaby
It’s surprising on one level, that there would be a huge falling out between those two particular people. Crosby and Lemieux lived together in Crosby’s early days with the Penguins. The two were side by side in Crosby’s inaugural press conference before his first ever NHL game in New Jersey. And the two share a rare club as NHL superstars. There’s not many people one can go to that will truly understand what they are going through.
But this doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. First off, even with all that they share or have shared, one is a player and one is an owner. That trumps a lot of situations in the moment. Second, this comes on the heels of Evgeni Malkin saying that everybody is mad at each other in the Penguins room. So no matter how much you think this talk around the Penguins is mere speculation, and how much of this you think is truth rather than hearsay that Barnaby is plugged into, there seems to be something not quite right with this franchise right now.
The question, as posed by Barnaby, is what this will lead to. Would the Penguins really think of moving Sidney Crosby? You shouldn’t discount anything. I’m sure you’ve heard most trade rumors manifest with the starting point of “Well, if Wayne Gretzky can be traded …” But I’ll turn it around and say that the Gretzky trade tells you that there’s no way Crosby can be traded. Forget how good Crosby is. He’s transcendent. And he brings in money. He, along with Lemieux, saved the franchise. And while Lemieux might sell the team one day, I doubt highly that he cares about the franchise so little that he would burn the kingdom down before handing the keys to somebody else. In other words: If you trade Crosby, that franchise could spiral back to the days where every day brought a relocation rumor. It isn’t as if they have the 1990 Oilers to carry them to a Cup post-Gretzky. This is a completely different scenario.
But it bears watching.
Update
Sidney had a response to the reports after his Penguins defeated St. Louis in overtime on Wednesday night. Here it is in tweet form:
Crosby said idea that there's a rift between him, Lemieux was made up, said he hated even addressing it. #Penguins
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 26, 2015
Crosby quote: "I honestly don’t even know what to say to that. If people are going to make stuff up, it’s totally out of my control." (cont)
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 26, 2015
More Crosby: "I feel stupid even commenting on it. That’s ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence when (cont)
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 26, 2015
More Crosby: you’re struggling and the pts aren’t coming that something like that comes up, but in my experience that’s usually the case.
— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) November 26, 2015
Crosby, by the way, had two goals in the Pittsburgh victory. Perhaps the rumors have awoken the slumbering giant.
