**BREAKING** The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed Sidney Crosby to a two-year extension. Nick shares his instant reactions and what this news means for the Penguins. Tune In!
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My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be to be. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the tip of the iceberg, a special breaking news edition of the tip of the iceberg. I'm your host, Nick Belsky, and if you're typically a watcher of tip of the iceberg, you can probably tell based on if you're watching it on video, the fact that I am not in my studio. If you're listening on the podcast version, you know that this is not my typical microphone, but had some car troubles over the weekend, which means it is the perfect day for Sidney Crosby. That's what his name on the dotted line and sign an extension with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The big news that everybody has been waiting for since July 1st has finally come down two days prior to the start of Penguins training camp. I said a couple of months ago, after he went through July 1st, after he blew past August 7th, 8/7, which we're going to talk about that number a lot in this couple of minutes here. I went through those two publicly imposed deadlines, and I looked at it and said at this point, it feels like he's just going to sign right before training camp. That's the best thing for the Penguins PR-wise. That allows him to enjoy his summer as Rob Rossi of the athletic was reporting that they had parted ways, so Sid could enjoy his summer. So Kyle Dubas could continue to work on other things in the Penguins organization. Well, two days before the opening of training camp, here we are. Sydney Crosby signs a two-year contract extension that is going to pay him, on average, $8.7 million per season. He stays the same. We'll talk about what that means for the Penguins coming up. But first, here's what Penguins president of hockey operations and general manager Kyle Dubas had to say on Crosby via the Penguins PR and their press release. "There are no words to properly describe what Sydney Crosby means to the game of hockey. The city of Pittsburgh and the Penguins organization. Sydney is the greatest player of his generation and one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His actions today show why he is one of hockey's greatest winners and leaders. Sid is making a tremendous personal sacrifice in an effort to help the Penguins win both now and in the future as he's done for his entire career." That last bit there from Kyle Dubas really highlights everything you need to know about Sydney Crosby and everything that, if you're watching this video, you probably already know about Sydney Crosby. He is the consummate professional. He is the consummate team player and he is one of the best captains that the history of this game has ever seen. He could have made much more than $8.7 million on this contract and I don't think the Penguins would have batted an eye. I feel like in this entire situation, especially considering what Sydney Crosby had to say last week at the NHL player mediator about, this hasn't been a difficult situation or a difficult discussion at all. They've made it very easy on me. It seems like they almost gave him a blank check. What do you want? Because we're going to give it to you as they should have. Crosby is going into year 20 of his NHL career and the 12th year of his 12 year contract that he signed back in 2012. He's made $8.7 million every year that has not been his rookie contract and he's going to make $8.7 million the next two years after his contract expires next off season. So as of right now, Crosby is signed for three more seasons at $8.7 million. The breakdown is heavily bonus laden. If you look at this from Elliot Friedman of SportsNet and 32 thoughts, he said year one Sydney Crosby's contract will be $9 million in salary or sorry in bonuses that he'll get on July 1st of next year and $780,000 in salary. Year two will be $6.53 million in bonuses on July 1st and his salary will be just over $1 million, $1 million and $90,000. Throughout that final year, the 2026, 27 season, which is how long Crosby is now signed through. You look at this and it's huge for the Penguins. They locked down their captain. They locked down their leader. They locked down Sydney Crosby through 22 years of his career at this point. Well, that be it. Who knows? Crosby said at the end of last season and he said at the NHL player media tour to paraphrasing here a little bit, but I don't know. I'm 37 years old. He's 37 years old, he doesn't know how he's going to feel at the end of this season. He doesn't know how he's going to feel at the end of the next season. He's not going to know how he's going to feel at the end of the season after that. As long as Crosby wants to continue playing though, I have a hard time believing anybody is going to say no to putting them on their team, especially the Pittsburgh Penguins. So who knows how long he plays, but what we know as of right now is Sydney Crosby at 8.7 as it's been for the last 11 seasons, plus some, that's going to continue for the next three years. They've reached for the Penguins because well, now they have some flat financial flexibility. You look at what that does for them, him taking at the very least $2 million of a, of a pay cut, probably more. He's been playing under market value in his entire career and he's going to continue to do that through years 21 and 22, thanks to this contract and the Penguins because of that are able to do a lot of things. I'm sure Crosby's hoping they're able to put a team around him that helps the team grow for the future after he's gone, but also helps him get to his goal of getting Stanley Cup number four. So we'll see if they're able to do that, but what this does, what Crosby does is gives them that flexibility to be able to make those moves and to be able to be aggressive. Maybe not this soft season, but maybe the next couple of off seasons as the Penguins look to try to dig themselves out of the hole that they've put themselves in these past two seasons. The good thing is though, it's a lot easier to dig out when you're doing it with 87 on the ice. And Sidney Crosby will be on the ice for the Pittsburgh Penguins for the rest of his career. Was it ever in doubt? Not really, but at the same time, it's nice to have the news out. It's nice to have it be known and it's nice to put a complete end to all the speculation we heard all summer long. Crosby's resigned, camp starts in two weeks, Penguins prospect challenge. They try to finish it off undefeated tonight at five o'clock against the Buffalo Sabres. A lot of things happening in the Penguins universe. We'll talk about it all tomorrow on a full episode of the tip of the iceberg, more reactions from the Crosby contract, as well as reactions from the Penguins prospect challenge in their final game tonight. And of course, getting you set for Wednesday as the Penguins are ready to start their 2024-25 season and the day one of training camp. But that's going to do it for this episode of the tip of the iceberg. Crosby officially signed. Remember, if you like this video, hit the like button. If you liked it a lot and you want more content from us, make sure you share it, subscribe it, all that fun stuff at tip of the iceberg on YouTube, or you can find us anywhere you get your podcasts from. That's it for this one. We'll see you guys next time.
