Pittsburgh Penguins franchise cornerstone Sidney Crosby is expected to recover from a wrist surgery in about six weeks, Penguins general manager Ron Hextall said.

The surgery puts Crosby out of commission for all of training camp. If the recovery takes as long as the Penguins expect, he will also miss the first week of the 2021-2022 National Hockey League season. The procedure was done to correct older damage which occurred over a year ago that never fully healed. 

Crosby had reportedly tried other forms of rehabilitation and procedures that were, in Hextall’s words, “minimally invasive” to the injured area, without being fully successful. In September 2020, Crosby underwent such a procedure which sidelined him for a timeline of three to four weeks. Evidently, Crosby’s problem has been persistent despite these measures, and this was the option which provided the best chance at full recovery.

With Crosby likely out for the first week, the Penguins will need someone to take a big step as their top-line center to lead them toward a successful start to their season. That person will not be Evgeni Malkin, as he is recovering from his own injury; his knee underwent surgery in June; and he likely will not rejoin the Penguins until December. With the now-departed Jared McCann in Seattle, the Penguins’ center depth is in a seriously tight position to begin the season.

This most likely leaves Jeff Carter, who was acquired from Los Angeles and fit in nicely with the Penguins after the trade deadline last March, and Teddy Blueger, who frequents the Penguins’ bottom six, though he has sometimes been used as an effective utility player of sorts on the higher lines. 

Carter, 36, has the talent of a first-line center and played that role for a majority of his career, though his production dropped and he began to show his age during his last three seasons with the Los Angeles Kings. After his trade to Pittsburgh, Carter’s production ramped up to end the season, culminating with a four-goal performance against the Buffalo Sabres and nearly reaching a point-per-game scoring pace.

Although the 27-year old Blueger has shown steady improvement since his promotion to the NHL, he has never quite reached elite offensive talent and usually functions as a supportive checking forward, but has previously been successful when filling in forward roles that are normally out of his comfort zone in the event of an injured teammate.

Crosby’s and Malkin’s injuries aside, the Penguins have an already difficult mountain to climb opening the season on October 12th when they take on the reigning back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning, at Amalie Arena in Tampa. The Penguins’ first home game of the season will see them hosting the Chicago Blackhawks on October 16th.