Nov 27, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby (87) and center Evgeni Malkin (71) talk before a face-off against the Vancouver Canucks during the third period at PPG Paints Arena. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images The bar for the NHL’s highest-paid player keeps rising. Macklin Celebrini is now the big fish with an $18.8 million cap hit for the next five years, but other stars could soon pass that whopping figure.
As salaries skyrocket, Sidney Crosby looks oddly out of place and very underpaid. The Pittsburgh Penguins‘ captain never participated in the rising salary game. While some assume Crosby cut the team a hometown discount back in 2012 when he signed his mega 12-year contract with a cap hit of $8.7 million, there was far more to it, according to Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson.
Brisson spoke with our colleague Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now following Celebrini’s new record-setting contract, which carries an $18.8 million salary cap hit. It seems the $ 8.7 million number was a nice number, but not one that player or agent set out to meet, and Crosby had doubts about playing past 35. “But with Sidney, what people don’t understand, or don’t know, the (12-year deal), he was 25 going on 26 years old.
It was a time when we could do 12-year deals or 14-year deals. And we looked at Sidney–the way he plays the game, he was very physical,” said Brisson. “As you know, he was concussed the year before.
He missed a full year almost, and he came back. He came back, and he played 20 games. “His next contract was not insurable–he had to have an exclusion to his head
We were talking about a five-year deal, probably $11 million a year. And then we pushed. He’s 26.
Doing five years, he’s gonna be 31 (at the end). And then we said, why don’t we do eight years? We had agreed to do nine years at 11 a year.
(So), nine years, he was going to be 35, and we said, are you going to play past 35 years old, the way you play the game? And Sidney was like, ‘I’m going to do my best, but there might be a time when I might not be able to. '” So, scratch the perception that Crosby insists on an $8.7 million AAV.
“Sidney’s a physical player, he grinds it every night, and he had that concussion. So, we decided to add three years to the (12-year) deal and lower the AAV. Then we started playing with the numbers; we’re at 9.1, 9.2, and then 8.7 came about again, and we end up doing 8.7 times 12.” And another interesting takeaway from the agent is that not only could Crosby finally get paid a little more than $8.7 million on his next deal.
“Now, the last negotiation, two years at $8.7 million, he didn’t care much. He kept it that way,” Brisson reported. “His next deal, he may do an extension next summer.
He may sign a one-year deal for $12 (million). I don’t know.” **Check out Sheng’s full interview with Brisson for more on Crosby and Celebrini at San Jose Hockey Now, the premier source for Sharks coverage. How Much More Could Crosby Have Made?
Of course, the recent fireworks of salary expectation started in early July when the Philadelphia Flyers plunked a massive offer sheet with an $18 million AAV in front of Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson. Anaheim matched it, making the 21-year-old Carlsson the top of the salary charts. However, San Jose moved decisively to lock up Celebrini on his second contract, paying him even more for the next five years beginning next year.
So, in light of escalating salaries and realities, how much did Crosby lose out on by trading security in 2012 for money? Their accountants and business managers might want to turn away now. Credit PuckPedia.com for the historical salary calculations.
Just as Celebrini did, Crosby signed a five-year deal at age 20 that accounted for just over 15% of the team’s cap hit, and, of course, it was for $8.7 million annually–the number that has become synonymous with Crosby. So, his first contract was appropriate market value. However, after that, Crosby signed that 12-year deal which carried the same $8.7 million AAV.
It was a risk for the team to give such a long deal (before the league outlawed them in the 2012-13 lockout), following Crosby’s extended concussion issue, which was actually not a concussion but a soft-tissue injury in his neck because it could not be insured. At the start of the deal, it did indeed account for 13.5% of the salary cap, and he was one of the highest-paid players in the game.
Both sides knew (or should have known) it wasn’t really a concussion problem, and the 12-year term meant the Penguins would soon have Crosby at well below market value, and as his contract finished in 2025, he accounted for about only 10% of the Penguins’ cap. Over the life of that deal, he earned $104.4 million, but it could have been much more. Pulling on the string of a shorter deal in 2012, if Crosby had signed the offer for $11 million over eight years, he would have been eligible for free agency again after 2020-21 That potential deal in 2012 would have paid him $88 million instead of the $69.6 million over the same time period, but then Crosby would have signed another deal in 2020-21, under the flat cap.