Teammate claims he’s “never seen Crosby as pissed off as he was”!

There is no way Sidney Crosby misses the postseason again. His Pittsburgh Penguins fell short of the playoffs this past spring for the first time since Crosby’s rookie season in 2005-06, and he won’t let that happen. Ever again.

“Motivation comes from not making the playoffs,” Crosby told The Athletic’s Rob Rossi. “That’s a bad feeling when you’re watching and you’re not in it. To know you were as close as we were - I mean, it was one point, basically, is the difference - you know how tight it is going in. But it’s just not fun watching.”

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman went a step further in his latest 32 Thoughts column on Tuesday night and revealed, thanks to one Penguins’ member, how frustrated Crosby truly was with last season’s outcome.

“One Penguin said he’d never seen Crosby as pissed off as he was at the end of last season. “It was such a struggle for us to find consistency,” the captain said, when asked about it. “I’ve been in a situation where we’ve been first all year and you just ride that into the playoffs. (When) we won in 2016, we were out of the playoffs and went on a great run, had momentum going in, just caught fire. This was a new situation for us. We were chasing it from early on, but we had put ourselves in a spot to get in. It wasn’t a miracle we needed. We needed to win our last two games. To go through all that, all the ups and downs, and to be in a position to get in and not be able to find a way — that’s something we had done in the past, and we didn’t do it this time.” Pittsburgh suffered a pair of stunning losses in their 81st and 82nd games, 5-2 at home to Chicago and 3-2 in Columbus.”

Many changes came to Pittsburgh following the Penguins’ failure to clinch a playoff spot. General manager Ron Hextall and president Brian Burke were fired before Kyle Dubas was hired to run the front office. He made the summer quite bright in Pittsburgh, adding free agents to the roster and orchestrating a blockbuster trade for reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson.

“When there’s turnover and change, you just have to be open to it and make sure we’re ready to go,” Crosby commented. “I mean, there’s always going to be a learning curve for any new group, but when there’s a lot of turnover, that’s just part of it.”

And if these new guys know how Crosby was pissed off when the Penguins didn’t get to the postseason, there’s no way they’ll let that happen again.

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