Friday morning, Sidney Crosby participated in contact drills for the first time since suffering a concussion during Game Three. After practice, Crosby said that he felt good and that he could potentially play in Game Five.
The Pittsburgh Penguins captain was also asked about his thoughts on the Ovechkin slash and Niskanen cross-check that combined to give him a concussion. Pittsburgh reporter Rob Rossi made waves Monday night for claiming that the Russian machine was “the Capital most responsible for Crosby’s injury” and that Ovechkin should be suspended.
Crosby disagreed.
“[Ovechkin’s] just trying to prevent a goal. That’s a pretty common play,” Crosby said. “There are different levels of how hard, but that’s standard as far as going to the net with the puck. Guys are trying to prevent you from shooting.”
“The [Niskanen] play is hard to say,” Crosby continued. “I’m not going to sit here and guess. It’s not one that happens too often.”
That doubt might explain the shade Marc-André Fleury threw at Niskanen during Game Four. Fleury put a piece of masking tape over Niskanen’s name on his goalie mask. The bucket celebrated previous Penguins championship teams.
Penguins forward Chris Kunitz was the only Penguins player to go on the record and say the cross-check was intentional.
“You look at it once and you see what actually happened,” Kunitz said. “I think the next thing is watching how deliberate it was when the guy kind of cross-checks him in the face.”
“I thought all that was kind of out of this league, but I guess not,” he concluded.
