Sidney Crosby was whistled for the first embellishment penalty of his 21-season career against the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of this year’s playoffs.
The milestone moment for the Pittsburgh Penguins captain occurred in Game 3 of the series against the Flyers, and it’s clear that Philly sports fans aren’t going to let Crosby forget about it any time soon.
The Flyers, eliminated in the second round by the Carolina Hurricanes, recently let their fans paint on the ice at their home arena, Xfinity Mobile Arena, and one fan made sure to paint Crosby’s dramatic display onto the exact spot of the ice where it happened.
The resulting painting, which I’m going to call a fine piece of art, was posted to X by user @_katecarr.
The half-black, half-orange outline donned the left circle of the offensive zone where Crosby tried to draw a call on Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway. Just above the prone portrait, the artist wrote “Embellishment 2:00 minutes” and “R.I.P BOZO,” fitting for what became a rivalry series full of back-and-forth trolling.
The funny jab comes after Crosby and the Penguins threw a muted tantrum after the call was made. They saw their request to speak with the series supervisor of officials declined.
“We don’t have a single embellishment all year,” Penguins head coach Dan Muse said. “Sidney Crosby doesn’t have an embellishment in 21 seasons. Stick’s in his face, they take both of them. I disagree on that strongly… Sid doesn’t embellish.”
Crosby was held off the scoresheet in three of the six games against the Flyers. He finished under a point per game with five points (1g, 4a) in his first playoff action since 2022.
