Sydney Crosby signed an extension.

Yep.

Just signed it now.

Yep.

I saw it. Two years, $8.7 million.

Now, here's what I'm trying to figure out. Number one, did the CJ show catch this before they finish their recording?

I know. They recorded this morning. Yeah, I don't know. No.

Well, we got it.

That's okay. We got it. No, I know. It was funny, though. Number two, where does he sign in two years? Yeah. Well, technically three years.

Where does he get traded? He might. During the length of this contract.

You know what? The countdown to 2027 is on.

I think that's really cool that Sid would sign at 8.7 at this point in his career when that's still a discount. This is a man who last year, you could argue, was top 10 center, top five even. He definitely could have got hard trophy votes if the Penguins made the playoffs. The fact that he's taken such an incredible discount just for the sake of, I want to continue to win in Pittsburgh. This is my gift back to you, the fan base. I'm never going to, in any moment in my career, make a double-digit number. What an incredible person Crosby is, and what a legacy he's building and leaving behind for the game of hockey.

I'll be honest, though, when he signed that contract, It was pretty significant. That was huge dollars. He was the best player in the league, though. Yeah. So he deserved it.

No one was like, Can you build a team around Crosby?

Yeah, no, everybody was. Now, here's the question, Pittsburgh fans. What if Crosby gets tired of watching the playoffs?

You know what? Now this opens up the possibility of a trade.

That's what I think. That's a really reasonable cap hit. That's a movable deal, don't you think?

I think Crosby will always have a movable deal. He can make 15, and you'd be like, Yeah, we could double retain or something.

Yeah, that's true.

Listen, the reasons for Crosby leaving Pittsburgh are obvious.

They're not good, and they're not going to be good.

Yeah, we've talked about that. Now, Well, could he get them to the playoff? Yes, he could. I think he could. Could they take another crack at it? Less optimistic about that. We've talked about all the reasons for why he might leave. He's there. He's there this year. He's going to be there the next two. And until there is strong evidence that something's going to happen, I'm leaving it alone.

I will not. I'm poking this. No. Sydney Crosby is what? 37?

Yes.

He'll be 40 when this deal is up.

I don't imagine Sydney Crosby is going to play late into his 40s. I don't envision him being Tom braided, Aaron Rodgers, just hanging on to every last morsel of this game. I think two is good. We throw our retirement party at the end of whenever this deal is. Three years from now. If he announced that three years from now, that's probably it. He retires a Penguin. I think this seals it.

I could see him playing maybe another year beyond this deal.

You signed one more year. Yeah, I could see that, too.

With the Toronto-Maeble leaves.

He's so close to so many all-time milestones. I do want him to play forever. I want him to play until the wheels fall off. You know what I mean? With Jogger, there was a very obvious decline, and I guess the difference is he played in-Jogger is still playing. It's insane. He played in the NHL into his mid-40s He's, I think, 53.

Still playing. Yeah, he was looking pretty good. I was watching some of that Czech League stuff.

He's not out of his element at all over there. He's still in the corner. Yeah, I saw those highlights, too. He's decent. I was like, All right. He should be out there. Yeah.

He still putting sticks in the middle of his sticks in the middle of the-Oh, yeah.

I want to know how many body checks he absorbs every game.

Who's hitting Jogger?

Oh, you got to go for-No, You don't. No one's hitting Jogger. Chris Johnson. You heard of him? No. Okay. Well, Chris Johnson, guy who might be on the rise. I don't know. He said, Incredibly, Cydney Crosby will end up playing 19 of his NHL seasons with a cap hit of 8.7 million.

1987.

Oh, I didn't put that together.

Crosby, there's something wrong with that, man. There's something wrong with him.

He said, That has given the Pens tremendous flexibility to build out in other areas of their roster at the much greater career earnings for him personally. Yeah, now, listen, Sid's done okay on the endorsement game, and will continue to do so well into his '60s and '70s, so I don't think he's worried about money. But I'd be worried about it. You don't see this. You don't see this.

Even guys who make the top, top end of every endorsement deal, you still don't see them taking this giant of a haircut on contracts. This is rare across all pro sports.

But he's 37.

He's 37. He's doing such an honorable thing when he had 94 points last season. Yeah.

And how many goals?

Four 42. Wow. Man. Like, 40 goal scorer, number one center.

He's an incredible player still. Yeah.

Still. Yeah.

And he's exactly the player who should have fallen apart by now. And just the injury history.

And he plays hard. He plays hard.

So what I'm trying to remember, head injuries, obviously in danger careers, big time. But I'm trying to think of lower body injuries he's had because he's such a mule, right? I think he had the abdominal thing. I don't remember. Like, knees kill you. Isomen couldn't play through the knees.

Backs are like the thing for hockey. Yeah, and I don't think he's ever really had that.

He's such a mule still at this point in his career.

Here's the problem for the penguins, and this is where I criticize the penguins regularly, is they have- Adam is so committed to the bit.

I know.

I'm not just committed to the bit. They're poorly managed. I hate to say it. This is good, though. No.

This helps them win.

No, it doesn't because they don't know how to spend the money that they have.

No, this helps them. It's not going to help them this year. I think the penguins are going to-Yes, it does. Really improve here.

Oh, I can't wait. With their $874,000 in CAB space this year and next year. Okay, well, they've got maybe... They got some money coming off the books a little bit. But you still got Gino at 6-1. Hopefully, he has another good year. Nick, this is next this year. You got Brian Rust for this year, plus three more at 5,125. All right. You got Ricard Raquel at 5 million for the next four years. That's this year included. I like the Michael Bunting deal at four and a half. What's that got to do with Crosby? Eric, because he took less money so they could spend money. If you remember what N'Ciprio said last year, he said, The reason that the guys don't love giving teams the money back-Is they spend it dumb? Because they spend it dumb. Yeah, fair enough. I'm sorry. The penguins have not spent well. They haven't spent well in the Burke-Hexdall era. Unforgivable. In the Dubas era, not that much better, although they've made good trades. They have made good trades. Dubas always does that. We'll see what Rekker McGordy is. He might be playing this year.

That's a crafty little deal. Absolutely. An interesting little deal.

It puts them one year up on their development.

I hope Crosby stacks 50 on the next three seasons.

Me too. And they'll be a great wild card team. Listen, here's the question. I understand.

Do you Do you want to make the playoffs and be the LA Kings, or do you want to make the playoffs and be the Everton Oilers? I understand what you're- And what's possible?

What's possible. And that's where I still look at the Crosby deal, and I know Penguins fans aren't going to like me for this, is, okay, that's awesome that he's staying. He's loyal. He's won you cups. That's great. There is a bit of a hitch in the gitty up, which is they haven't lost for extended periods of time while he's been there. He's been a large reason for that, but they have built great players around them. Think about the players or early on in his career that came through that system and augmented what Crosby was. So we can go back to Mark Recke, Bill Garen, Phil Kessel. Is it Jordan Stahl? Which Stahl, brother? Jordan. Jordan Stahl. And he was a draft pick. I get that. But They had the ability to bring in players around him that could augment him.Right now, they're locked up.Matt Murray.

This is what you are. Man, that's rookie Stanley Cup champion Matt Murray.

Yeah, that's right. Matt Murray for two years. My point is, it's awesome for Pittsburgh if you want to avoid a situation that's potentially awkward in the next couple of years where Crosby goes, You know what? Maybe I would like to go to the playoffs just one more time and actually have a shot at this. Start to jump in some of these shitty contracts and stop signing people to them. But yes.

So here's what keeping Crosby allows the penguins to do. Rutger McGroady on most teams is Rutger McGrody. Rutger...

Fuck, that's right. No, I say it 10 times faster.

Rutger McGroady, Rutger McGroady.

What were his parents thinking? I do want to say. What were they thinking?

It's just a big old bunch.

It's a lot.

Rutger McGroady on most NHL teams is Rutger McGroady. Rutger McGroady on the Pittsburgh Penguins is Rutger McGroady playing with Sydney Crosby.

And that's fantastic.

And learning under him and practicing under him.

Living in his basement because that seems to be a thing hockey players need to do. It's valid. He's going to live with Thornton and Marlo. It's valid and vital. Celebrating with Thornton Will Smith with Marlo.

They got to do it.

And Mario is going to kidnap Crosby.

Yeah, that's right. And Marc-Andre Fleury.

And Marc-Andre Fleury.

The actual story that happened. Listen to Agent Provocative.

Counterpoint. It'd be great if McGroady was a bus, so I can't say that name.

Oh, man, he scored zero goals.

Now I don't have to say it.

Crosby with this deal is clearly saying, I believe in the penguins, and I believe that Cal Dubas can build something there significant in the next year and two years.

Until I ray-bork it with Nate in a couple I know.

I know. I don't think that's happening. I know. I think over the next three years, because this year plus the two on the contract extension, Crosby believes that they can get back to the playoffs. Right.

It's not... Philly almost made it.

Adam doesn't believe.

That's the thing.

No, I don't believe in what they're doing in Pittsburgh. I do believe that Sydney Crosby staying is amazing, and I'm thrilled.

But the two things are separate.

Thrilled for Penguin's fans about Crosby staying. But I'm just saying, just like we said with Edmondson a couple of years ago, If you want to avoid the awkward conversation of, Are they going to stay? Edmonton clearly got to the Stanley Cup finals. We still don't know McDavid, but Leon signing is a pretty positive sign. If they hadn't done that, we would be having a different conversation right now. Okay. Now it is on. What Sid has done here is he's gone, Okay, not only am I going to do... I'm going to resign with you. I'm going to resign with you at my current cap hit. Here's your shot. You're the wonder kid. Be the wonder kid.

The one time that having a Jersey number in your contract is fine.

You're the only player-So you're okay with it? People are tweeting me already about that.

No, he's fine. Crosby doesn't count.

Okay, you're good with that.

He is immune. He could be making 10, at least. Also, I do want to add an update. The CJ show is recording an addition. Oh, that's nice. Onto the show because the news is- Steve, you don't need to add that because it already-Yeah, this is like- I'm adding it.

People are listening to this at 5:30. You're like, You know what? Back in time when you've already listened to the CJ show. I'm adding it.

Maybe they haven't.

But what if they haven't?

Stay out of the group chat.

What about the show we're doing actively?

People are taking his back. He's taking the book back.

The people who want to know. Sydney Crosby is never going to fall off because of this. His thighs. Sydney Crosby's thighs. I had a bunch of pictures of Sydney Crosby's thighs up, but I went with this one because this one was from last season. A lot of the pictures that you'll see of Sydney Crosby's thighs are throughout the years, they'll be like, 2018, look at Crosby's thighs. This is from December of 2023. He still got it. They are still absolutely massive, and they are not going anywhere. He has muscles that you don't even know exist.

His kneecaps have kneecaps.

His kneecaps have muscles in them.

That's not even a kneecap.

No. There's muscle on top of the kneecap.

What do you think that his deadlift is?

It's got to be something stupid. It's got to be 5,000.

Because I think it was Stamcoast the other year that he was doing deads, and they were like... This is years ago, sorry. But he was doing like, 600 or 700 pounds? Something crazy. No, they're...

Hockey players are built.

Do I have that right? It was bonkers. It was crazy what he had on that. You think like he's... I believe it. You look at Crosby's upper body, which looks athletic, but like normal. He doesn't look like Dave Batista pre all the weight loss. You know what I'm talking about?

Man, the animal.

Yeah, just those legs, dude. He's got to get custom jeans. You can't walk into a store. Every store would sell you skinny jeans because you'd never find jeans that would fit.

That's how the show started. You and old school reporter Chris, you brought me to the Jack Asters on Front Street, and you were like, just talk about hockey. I was like, yeah, I read about Sydney Crosby wearing custom pants. He must. Recently.

Yeah, of course he does. Those won't fit in regular pants. You're talking about deadlifts. If we want to compare athletes, Jail Jalen Hertz has a 620 pound deadlift. That's insane. I assume Crosby's in somewhere in that neighborhood. But then this past off season, the Philadelphia Eagles where Jalen Hertz plays, they signed Saquon Barkley, who's their running back. And he's like, I can out deadlift you. And he did a 700 pound one. It's on TikTok. She's like, I'm, screw you.

I said 800 pounds. It's like a joke. I didn't-No.

I assumed that Sid would be in the 600 pound area since he's using his legs that much. But Saquon's a power runner. It's football. He's in 700 pound area.

As an aside, all of those clips that came out about how the New York Giants lost Saquon, and ultimately were like, Well, whatever we get offered, we'll just offer him the same. And they lost him. Wow, did they look like idiots. I just thrown that out there. Wow.

The New York football Giants.

That's right. New York football giants. When I was doing my rant about the New York baseball Giants, I kept calling them the Brooklyn Giants, and some people were on me about that because it was the Brooklyn Dodgers that used to be in New York, as well as the New York baseball giants. Way to be wrong.I just want to correct myself. Way to be wrong.