This is now official, as reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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The Penguins have signed center Sidney Crosby to a five-year contract extension. The deal is worth $43 million, an annual salary-cap hit of $8.7 million.
It will take effect in the 2008-09 season.
"Sidney has proven himself to be a dynamic player and team leader at a very young age, and it is exciting news for our franchise and our fans to have him under contract for the next six seasons, through 2013," said Fred Shero, the Penguins executive vice president and general manager.
"When you've got a guy who leads the league in scoring and wins the MVP award at the age of 19, you know have someone very special. But Sid also is a tremendous asset for this organization as a leader in the dressing room, and as the face of our franchise in the community. And the fact that he wants to be here long-term is a great statement about the city of Pittsburgh and our organization," Shero said.
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"Sid The Kid" became the youngest player ever to win a scoring title last year by scoring 36 goals and adding 84 assists to capture the Art Ross, the Hart, the Pearson and on top of it all, being part of the Eastern Conference's First All-Star team.
CROSBY FIVE YEAR EXTENSION AGREED TO
I just spoke to Brian Metzer who will be posting shortly, but he is hearing that the the deal is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years, 45 million.
Brian will be posting a blog shortly in "Blogging the NHL."
A source confirmed to me that the Penguins have agreed to a five year extension in the neighborhood of 9 per season, and since Sid is still under contract for the upcoming season that means 6 more years of Sid in steeltown.
Great work as always by Brian.
There's absolutely no way Crosby would have made anything less than that ghastly big amount the Penguins just handed him, if anything, he made less than what some teams would be willing to give him should he have hit the open market someday.
I know this IS Crosby we're talking about, the next "Great One" crap and all, but seriously, how much longer is this "new NHL" going to go on if top-talent players keep commanding this kind of amount?
And what about next year? Dany Heatley and Patrick Marleau will both likely break the bank should they hit unrestricted free-agency, and where does that leave the rest of those second-tier quality players?
It leaves them salivating with the idea of applying a hefty price tag to any team that wants to pick him up, with the top talent gone, basically raising the market price to a whole new level the NHL SHOULD NOT be going into.
Let's imagine this is a decent forward with many available options and teams seeking him speaking:
"Hey, Heatley just signed a 7-year/$60 million deal! That makes other teams who lost out on him come to me!
Hehe, with that kind of attention shift, I can really ask for more money now that they'd be willing to bring someone in like me since they totally failed to get Heatley!
KACHING!
I'll be seeing green for the rest of my life, and who cares where I end up now as long as they give me the $$$$$$"
I wonder why we had this lockout in the first place and why fans like you and I spent an entire year lamenting the loss of hockey only to be treacherously close to falling back into that hole we all thought the NHL climbed out of two years ago.
And I shiver to think that so many players have "Decent forward"'s mentality as mentioned in my make-believe quote above.
$$$$$$
--BBR
