There’s been plenty of speculation about Sidney Crosby’s progress from post-concussion syndrome in the last week (and really, since he began missing games in January), but it seems like the ultimate takeaway is that his short-term future is still unclear. Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ray Shero responded by saying that Crosby hasn’t been shut down for the summer, but didn’t give any concrete time frame for the star center’s return. The general message is that the Penguins are taking a wait-and-see approach with Crosby, which is a logical train of thought considering the murky nature of concussion-related injuries.
NHL.com caught up with Dan Bylsma at the 2011 NHL Research Development and Orientation Camp to try to elaborate a bit on the situation, but they didn’t get much from the Penguins coach. Beyond the industry standard direction of keeping injury updates under wraps, Bylsma also was sparse with his details because of his personal policy with players during the off-season.Penguins coach Dan Bylsma will not ask Sidney Crosby how he’s feeling or how he’s progressing until he sees him in Pittsburgh when it’s time for training camp.
Crosby continues to work out in and around the Halifax, N.S. area, but he has not been cleared for contact and the Penguins aren’t sure if he’ll be ready to participate with the club when training camp opens next month.
“Especially in the summertime, I try not to get involved in this type of, ‘How are you feeling’ conversation,” Bylsma told NHL.com from the NHL Research, Development and Orientation Camp, where he’s serving as a coach. “There are things I would normally talk about with Sid and those are the captain’s stuff like scheduling with the team. If I was to talk to him now, I wouldn’t say, ‘How do you feel today?’ I would say, ‘Where are you now?’ I would ask, ‘When are you coming to Pittsburgh?’ I would ask, ‘How many fish did you catch up in Nova Scotia?’ ”
While he hasn’t broached the subject with Crosby, Bylsma was honest enough to admit that he has considered different possibilities, including his plan for training camp if Crosby is unable to attend. If nothing else, the Penguins have become accustomed to dealing with injuries to important players - and not just in last season’s especially trying times without Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Crosby also dealt with a high-ankle sprain in 2007-08, a season in which he played just 53 games but eventually helped the team make it to the 2008 Stanley Cup finals.With that in mind, Bylsma seems prepared to roll with the punches, even if the specifics of the challenges aren’t quite clear just yet.
“I’m not the coach that will say I haven’t thought of (what it would be like if Crosby wasn’t ready for training camp), but I think our team understands and knows how we’re going to play when everyone is not healthy. Part of our success last year was just that,” Bylsma said. “For instance, we don’t think we have to have Marc-Andre Fleury in net to win the game. We’re totally comfortable and confident when Brent Johnson goes in net. We think we can win. We don’t change the way we play. We don’t say, ‘Don’t make a mistake.’ It’s the same type of deal with everyone else, and that’s how we operated last year.
“We’re going to figure out how to be a good team starting right in training camp with whatever situation we have with any of our players.”It remains to be seen if Crosby will be one of them, so we’ll keep an eye out for updates from the team.