With Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby's injury status questionable in the coming days - and Evgeni Malkin still out - who should get the call from the AHL to fill in some center depth on the NHL roster? The Pittsburgh Penguins played the New York Rangers on Friday night at Madison Square Garden without their captain, Sidney Crosby, who is nursing an upper-body injury sustained during their Tuesday night contest against the New Jersey Devils. After going most of his career without playing the entire season, first skating in all 82 games in 2017-18, Crosby played every game from the start of the 2022-23 season to Friday night, ending his consecutive regular-season game streak [https://www.foxsports.com/nhl/sidney-crosby-player-injuries] at 229 games, which dates back to Apr. 9, 2022. Interestingly, the last two times that Crosby missed a Penguins regular season game came on Apr. 7, 2022, and again on May 13, 2022, which was Game 6 of their first-round playoff series. The one common dominator in both those absences was the New York Rangers. In 2021-22, Crosby missed seven games during the season [https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/c/crosbsi01/gamelog/2022], with the Penguins going 2-1-2 during five games without him in November. Here's a breakdown: * undefined * undefined * undefined * undefined * undefined The next game Crosby missed came on Apr. 7, 2022, against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, where Pittsburgh lost 3-0. Then, the next game that the captain would miss was Game 6 of the first-round matchup with New York, which the Penguins lost 5-3 to set up a Game 7. After the Penguins' 3-2 triumph over the Rangers on Friday night, they are now 3-2-2 (including playoffs) without Crosby in the lineup since the start of the 2021-22 season, including the last three games he's missed. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjEyMTYyNzc0NjIzNTk0MDE5/thnpitnews.png] Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjEwNjYwNDIwMDI3OTUwOTI5/thnpitbanner.png]
