A nod to the past brought Sidney Crosby to tears. The Penguins captain is smiling about the present

Members of the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby, left, Evgeni Malkin, center, and Kris Letang take part in a celebration of the 10th anniversary before an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Sidney Crosby raised his eyes to the videoboard, and all the memories came flooding back, accompanied by tears that the Pittsburgh Penguins captain made no effort to wipe away.

Spend your life doing something, and things get blurry. It wasn’t until Crosby watched a tribute to the 2016 Penguins team that won the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup before Saturday’s 6-5 win over the New York Rangers that some of the moments he’d thought were lost to time recrystallized in high definition.

Nick Bonino’s overtime winner over Washington in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. Bryan Rust’s go-ahead goal in Game 7 of the conference finals against Tampa Bay. Kris Letang’s Cup-clinching marker — off a feed from Crosby — in Game 6 against San Jose.

Standing near center ice next to Letang (in a boot to protect the fractured left foot he sustained on Thursday against Chicago) and Evgeni Malkin, with so many familiar faces stretched 10 deep in both directions, the usually reserved 38-year-old Crosby felt a twinge he figured might come and leaned into it.

“I love the experiences and the memories that I have,” Crosby said. “That’s how it comes out. You don’t see those moments all the time. It’s not like I watch those on YouTube. So when you see them, they tend to hit you a little harder the older you get.”

Many of those Crosby skated alongside a decade ago have moved on to the next chapter of their lives. Bonino is now on staff for first-year Penguins coach Dan Muse. Defenseman Trevor Daley is a special assistant to general manager Kyle Dubas. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury recently retired. Kunitz is a player development advisor with the Chicago Blackhawks.

The group as a whole was going nowhere in late 2015 when then-head coach Mike Johnston was fired and replaced by Mike Sullivan. Over the next six months, Sullivan and then-general manager Jim Rutherford (now the president of the Vancouver Canucks) turned an underachieving group into champions. They did it again the following year, becoming the first franchise in nearly two decades to go back-to-back.

In Crosby’s head, it doesn’t seem like a long time ago. As a professional athlete, it’s an eternity. The 2016 and 2017 teams cemented Crosby’s status as the greatest player of his generation.

That kind of success has been hard to come by of late. The Penguins, a postseason fixture from 2007-22, haven’t won a playoff series since 2018. And while Crosby remains a force — he recently surpassed franchise icon, Hall of Famer and minority owner Mario Lemieux as the team’s all-time scoring leader and is on his way to extending his NHL record of averaging at least a point a game to 21 years and counting — he’s also become keenly aware of just how fleeting the kind of chemistry the 2016 club can be.

“I love that group,” Crosby said. “I love playing.”

He loves winning even more, something the current crop of Penguins is doing at a rate that has them among the biggest surprises in the league as the Olympic break looms.

Pittsburgh’s ‘harder-than-it-had-to-be’ win over the Rangers — now coached by Sullivan, who received one of the loudest ovations seven months after trading Pittsburgh for New York — moved the Penguins into second place alone in the Metropolitan Division.

Their 13th victory in 17 games since Dec. 27 came the way a lot of them have come over the last three-plus months: with contributions from up and down the lineup. Anthony Mantha, working on the third line, scored twice. Noel Acciari, a fourth-line fixture, scored a pair too. Rookie Ben Kindel — all of 18 — added a late empty netter to avoid what might have been a stunning collapse after the Penguins flirted with letting a four-goal lead in the third period slip away.

The team that has struggled to defend during their three-year playoff absence held the Rangers without a shot on goal for 21 minutes at one point. And when New York drew within one with 10 seconds to go and then managed to get a faceoff in the Pittsburgh zone with 3.6 seconds left, Acciari won the draw and steered the puck out of danger.

The heady play let goaltender Stuart Skinner and the rest of the Penguins exhale on a night Skinner — a Stanley Cup runner-up with Edmonton each of the last two seasons before being acquired by the Penguins in December — is well-versed on the thin line between a great season and a historic one.

“Every time you go to the Stanley Cup finals, especially for the teams that win, the stories that you have, the camaraderie, you know you bled for each other throughout that year,” Skinner said as he watched Lemieux and Crosby share a quiet moment a few stalls away. “So I’m sure it’s really cool for these guys to get back together and it’s really cool that I’m in the same dressing room as some of the Stanley Cup champions.”

There’s a long way to go before the current Penguins can start thinking of joining that kind of company. Yet Crosby is encouraged. He knows better than most the DNA required for a team to raise the Cup in late spring. Pittsburgh is hardly there yet, but for the first time in what seems like a long time, it doesn’t feel completely out of reach.

“I think everyone’s contributing, that’s what you need to win,” he said. “And you have to win different ways and you look all through our lineup, everybody’s been chipping in big ways ... I think if you go through those things and you have consistency in all those areas, you give yourself a chance.”

Will Graves, The Associated Press