The Morning Take: Penguins About "To Start Trading Everyone" — Including Sidney Crosby?

Another day. Another loss.

It has been about a couple of weeks since Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas put the fate of the team's future in the players' hands, saying it's up to them "to show where we want to go."

Since then, the Penguins have spun their tires, winning three straight and losing three straight.

And so, with the March 8 trade deadline days away, the 12th-place team is about to be dismantled.

According to reports, GM Kyle Dubas is going "to start trading everyone." That probably includes Jake Guentzel, Reilly Smith and Noel Acciari. And if it were up to player-turned-analyst Paul Bissonnette, it should also include Sidney Crosby.

"Imagine wasting the season Sid just had," Bissonnette tweeted over a weekend, where the Penguins lost to Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton. "That's the biggest joke. Send him to Colorado to play with (Nathan) MacKinnon. Now we're talking."

As much as it seems unlikely, Bissonnette may have a point.

Crosby is 36 years old. And he's playing some of the best hockey in his career.

Tied for 10th in the Rocket Richard Trophy race with 32 goals, Crosby is just outside the top-20 in scoring with 63 points in 59 games. At his age, there might not be too many seasons like this one. And the worst part is that it is being wasted. It's been like that for a while now.

It's been six years since Crosby won a playoff round. Last year, he didn't make the playoffs, despite finishing with 93 points. This year, he will miss again — a trend that doesn't seem to ending anytime soon.

With one year remaining on his contract, this is not the way one of the greatest players in the history of the NHL should be playing out the final years of his career. Not even one who has already won three Stanley Cups.

So what do the Penguins do now? If you are Dubas, do you try to get younger on the fly and hope that the returns for Guentzel and Smith and whoever else doesn't have no-move-clauses can lead to a one-year retool? Or is it finally time that Pittsburgh bites the bullet and tears things completely down and starts over?

If it's the latter, what does that mean for Crosby?

We know from talking to him that Crosby only wants to continue playing while he can compete at an elite level. But what we don't know is whether he wants to compete for a team that is no longer considered elite. And the Penguins are far from elite.

If so, then maybe Bissonnette is onto something. Maybe the best place for Crosby is in Colorado, where he and Halifax native Nathan MacKinnon can win championship-after-championship like the NHL's version of the Golden State Warriors.

Yeah, it seems unlikely. But it's probably not as unlikely as expecting the Penguins to win another Cup — much less make qualify for the playoffs.

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