Sidney Crosby dumps Evgeni Malkin at Penguins’ practice!

With his new contract extension in hand, Sidney Crosby is not messing around and is now focused on hockey. After signing a two-year extension with the Pittsburgh Penguins for his usual $8.7M US per season, extending him through the 2026-27 season, Crosby kicked off training camp with intensity, as reporters caught him dumping teammate and close friend Evgeni Malkin in front of the net during practice.

While the captain is not looking to injure any of his teammates ahead of the 2024-25 season, you just know he was not going to take it easy on any of them, especially Malkin. The Russian forward made fun of Sid upon the captain signing the extension when he was asked about how the two of them would celebrate the new deal, joking on how the predictable captain who want to celebrate with Italian food, like chicken parmigiana or caesar salad.

Crosby’s dump did not prevent Malkin from celebrating his goals at camp with maximum enthusiasm. After the scrimmage on Thursday, Malkin was very pleased with his performance and how ready he is for the upcoming campaign, though he made it clear that something needs to change for the Penguins to make the postseason. But he has a very funny way to see why that happened, saying that “when me and Sid both play 82 games, we miss the playoffs. Maybe I miss one game this year.”

I guess we will have to see how the Penguins do this season, but the fact that the boys are having fun already is a great sign for the attitude and motivation for the 2024-25 season.