PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby does not have an off switch. If there was one, Patric Hornqvist believes he would have found it by now.
Not once over the last two years while playing alongside one of the NHL’s most popular players has Hornqvist seen an exasperated sigh, a roll of the eyes or so much as a smirk from the superstar who has dutifully served as one of the faces from the league from the moment the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted him No. 1 overall in 2005 and he became tasked with restoring the languishing franchise to glory.
“It’s crazy how well-prepared he is for everything,” Hornqvist said.
Of course it’s easy to say now, with the Penguins holding a 1-0 lead over San Jose heading into Wednesday night’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final. Their captain and two-time MVP seems restored to his place among the game’s elite after ending a seven-year drought between appearances in the NHL’s marquee event.
It’s a gap few saw coming when the 21-year-old Crosby held the Cup aloft in joy in Detroit in 2009 after beating the Red Wings in seven games.
“Everybody thought (we’d) win 5-6-7 in the next 10 years,” said recently retired Penguin forward Pascal Dupuis.
Everybody thought wrong. The burgeoning dynasty fizzled, with Crosby bearing the brunt of perpetual disappointment, accepting the blame for everything from his health to spotty goaltending to a top-heavy roster that lacked the depth necessary to make a deep postseason run.
“Look, this is his third final in his short career to this point, and that’s pretty good,” said former Pittsburgh coach Ed Olczyk, who coached Crosby as a rookie in 2005-06. “Now, in saying that, there haven’t been many teams that have underachieved more than the Pittsburgh Penguins over the course of the last five or six years.”
A label Crosby took personally even as circumstances made him struggle to shed it. There was the protracted recovery from concussion-like symptoms that robbed him of two seasons in his prime. A series of meek playoff flameouts in which opponents found a way to stifle his brilliance.
“You just have to be able to put it all together at the right time,” Crosby said.
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