What Will Sidney Crosby's Next Contract Look Like? Should He Take a Penguins Discount?

Sidney Crosby enters the final year of his contract next season. With the Pittsburgh Penguins struggling to make the playoffs, Adam Proteau discusses whether Crosby should take a discount to stay in Pittsburgh or not.

The plight of the Pittsburgh Penguins this season has been sobering to fans and media. 

Their current position near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division has observers looking beyond this year and to the organization's future. 

That raises the question of Pittsburgh’s long-term relationship with captain and superstar center Sidney Crosby. At this time next season, Crosby will be in the final months of his contract – and many are intrigued to see how his status with the Pens will play out.

Before we go any further, let’s be clear: nobody is suggesting Crosby intends to leave the organization. 

The 36-year-old is riding out a 12-year contract that averages $8.7 million per season – and considering what Crosby has delivered every campaign, that’s a very team-friendly deal. But he’d likely be able to get at least that much on the open market. The term would be much different – we’d probably be looking at a two- to three-year deal – but we’d expect Crosby to command about the same from the Penguins.

Pittsburgh has enough salary cap space to keep Crosby in the fold. They’ve got eight players under contract for 2025-26 and a projected $42.5 million in cap space – and that’s before any raises in the upper cap ceiling beyond next season. Any offer Crosby gets could be matched and bettered by the Penguins, so it’s really up to Crosby to dictate what his salary boundaries will be.

That said, we’ve seen other NHL stars take massive discounts to give their team the best chance to succeed.

The most prominent example of that would be the incredible hometown discounts veteran Boston Bruins centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci gave to the B's when they were in their final seasons. Combined, Bergeron and Krejci had a base salary of $2.5 million. Although they had performance bonuses in their deals, that’s a fraction of what the duo could’ve secured from another team. That allowed Boston to go out and augment their lineup with as many high-impact veterans as they could fit under the cap ceiling.

Would Crosby be willing to do something similar? Well, in theory, he could take a huge discount and stick around Pittsburgh for the rest of his on-ice career. 

But why would Crosby have to surrender much of his earnings to a Pens management that is struggling mightily to justify its augmenting roster moves? How is that fair to a guy who has been about as perfect a player as the modern game has ever seen? It’s fine and dandy to mention sacrifice and humility, but when it comes down to the bottom line, teams should need to step up and pay their stars for their market value.

Even if Crosby were to cut his payday in half to somewhere in the $4.4-million range in what would likely be his final contract, there’s no guarantee the Penguins would use their cap space to provide Crosby with enough talent to thrive as a team. They’ve been trying to do that for the past six seasons and won exactly one playoff round in that span. 

So, if you’re Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, would you advise Crosby to be paid a relative pittance? We have a hard time believing that would happen. Instead, we expect he’ll be paid about the same amount, and Penguins fans will be happy to see that take place.

As one of the greatest players in NHL and hockey history, Crosby has earned the right to write his career’s final chapters. Choosing to part ways with him would be madness on the part of Penguins brass, and lowballing him contractually would be just as bad. He ought to earn an amount of money that’s fair and reasonable, and the onus then would be on Penguins management to use the cap space that remains to support Crosby as his on-ice days draw to a close. That’s our best guess for the near future in Pittsburgh. 

Seeing Crosby in a different uniform would be jarring and upsetting to many Pens fans, but to keep him around, there must be some respect and appreciation for what he’s done for the franchise. That means a fair payday for him.