I can see Crosby giving a lot less crap on playing D. We saw it last year I can see even less.
He definitely got overlooked for Selke nominations in the 2010s - but lately he just doesn't do enough except take draws. That trophy is stupid to begin with but yeah - he'd play 4 seconds of penalty kill and mail in 25% of his shifts in the game.
That's not a critique, just an observation. He knows that in order to push 110% on certain high danger shifts, he has to mail in other shifts. That's completely fine. The issue is our lack of depth to really support that. That's why we look so awful on certain nights. If Sid isn't giving it everything - to make sure we
barely win - we're losing. That's telling and we've frankly gotten worse.
To the other points being said here - I agree that being in the middle makes no sense especially with the roster we're icing. It's utterly not competitive. You can count on Sid/Geno for what, really - 10-15 wins on the season? 35/25 goals for your 1 and 2C with not a lot of support is really not competitive in 2024. I just have to counter all these points about 'remaining competitive' because this roster is not that. And does it really matter to Sid whether we miss by 8 points next year or 20? Maybe. I just think that's a guy that wants to win every year and he's just not going to have a chance in hell to do that here (obviously, not without something going the other direction at this point). So why stay? Like, the legacy is cemented. At this point you're just putting yourself through misery to wind up losing and probably taking MORE of a beating on your body since you're now the
sole focus night in and night out. Behind a MacK? He could probably elongate his career another 2-3 years that way.