Crosby Might be Back Soon, but Who Will he Play With?

For those of you that live under a rock, it was announced today that Penguins All-Star Center and captain Sidney Crosby was cleared for contact today after missing the last few months with returning concussion like symptoms.

I'll pause so all of Pittsburgh can celebrate and scream for a moment.

All right. This is fantastic news for both the Penguins and the NHL. Arguably the best player in the league, Crosby hasn't really played since January 2011 (again, for you rock living people). Before suffering his concussion, Crosby was putting up points at a ridiculous pace at roughly 1.6 points per game. Extrapolate that over an entire 82 game season, and he potentially could have scored 131 points.

If you're new to hockey, that many points is good. Really good.

Anyways, fast forward past all the drama and the "Will Crosby retire? Is he ever coming back???? Is Crosby a vampire??? (no, he's a Ferrari.)" and such, Crosby made a return earlier this season, only to be thwarted by another hit in a game against Boston. Fast forward a few months later, and here we are. Sid's been cleared for contact, and at the earliest he could play this Sunday (don't get your hopes up).

But um, the Penguins are something like 20-4-1 since that awful losing streak a few weeks ago, so where is Crosby going to fit? The Neal-Malkin-Kunitz line needs to stay in tact. They need to play together for the rest of forever. That is a fact. What about moving Jordan Staal back down to the third line? I'm sure he's getting sick of that, though.

WAIT. I have an idea. What if, (drumroll, please), what if you put Crosby and Staal on a line together? Staal has really stepped up his offense this season since he's been given the opportunity. What if there was a Staal-Crosby-Dupuis (or Sullivan) line? The Penguins have a plethora of third line centers, and Staal clearly deserves to play a more expanded role than that.

But hey, I'm just a random guy behind a computer, so I don't know much, that's just my opinion. What I do know, however, is if Crosby is back and completely healthy come playoff time, the rest of the league might end up pissing their pants.

What Will the Penguins do with Jordan Staal?

There's a saying that you can never have too many centers or defensemen, and that's very, very true. Depth is key to a good season and playoff run. Defensemen log up the most minutes (obviously, there's only six of them a game usually), so they're more prone to being injured, thus the need for depth. Centers as well, are undeniably important, and it's much easier to teach a centerman to play the wing as opposed to the other way around; there's just too much to know and learn as a center.

Anyways, the Penguins (when healthy, knock on wood) have a plethora of centers: Crosby (for the sake of argument, we'll say he'll be back and healthy sooner rather than later), Malkin, Staal, Vitale, Park, Jeffrey, along with a few wingers that are pretty competent when it comes to playing up the middle of the ice. Now, according to capgeek, Jordan Staal's current contract expires at the end of next season, so this gives Ray Shero some time to think and plan and whatnot. However, with all the depth and the fact that Jeffrey and Vitale are playing extremely well in their third and fourth line roles, where does that lead Staal? He's been stuck in the bottom six for the last few seasons, and it's hard to imagine he'd want to re-sign with Pittsburgh if that were to continue. Also, given the fact that he'll undoubtedly want a significant raise from his current $4.5 million a year, Shero might be in a tough spot. You could put Staal on the second line and see if Malkin bodes well on the wing with either him or Crosby, or vice versa even. Perhaps Staal will fare well on the wing, who knows? Thing is though, Malkin and Staal both seem to excel when playing their natural center position, so as aforementioned, this is a tough spot for the Pens.

What if (drumroll, please) the Penguins opted to trade Staal? I'd place good money on the idea that there would be at least a few teams interested in a young, super-star, two-way, second line center. I'm not even going to begin to speculate on where Staal would hypothetically go, but in theory it could happen, I'd say. Not to mention the fact that in the next few years Shero will need to re-sign Crosby, Malkin, Letang (that's going to be an enormous contract), along with Neal next season. I'm sure if Staal were to be traded, he could bring in a nice return. Perhaps even another goal scoring winger to flank Crosby or Malkin, pending where Neal goes. Sidenote: that's a dangerous line right there, Crosby, Malkin and Neal. The few times they have played together...holy crap.

Anyways, who knows what will happen? The future sure does seem exciting, that's for sure.