Sidney Crosby's contract extension provides clarity, pressure for Kyle Dubas

With Sidney Crosby’s contract extension now known, the Pittsburgh Penguins have clarity. General manager Kyle Dubas knows he has at least this season and two more after it to make one more run at a Stanley Cup with Crosby in Black and Gold.

Theoretically, there could be more chances. On Monday, Crosby wouldn’t declare that this is his last contract before retiring, even though it will expire just a few weeks before his 40th birthday in the summer of 2027.

“Not knowing, just trying to project how you are going to feel — the number of years — it’s hard,” Crosby said after the contract announcement. “We’re really grateful that I can keep playing here for a number of years.”

Right now, that number is “3.” Three more years for Pittsburgh hockey fans to enjoy watching one of the best players the game has ever known.

It could be more, I guess. If Crosby is still a 94-point player in ‘27 like he was last year, he might want to keep playing.

Based on what we’ve seen from him throughout his first 19 seasons, would you feel comfortable betting against that prospect?

But, for now, we know it is going to be at least three more years.

There’s a sort of Tom Hanks in “Apollo 13” vibe to that. There was that scene when Hanks, as astronaut Jim Lovell, was in his backyard covering up the moon with his thumb.

It looks so far away, but that final destination is a lot closer than anyone understands.

Let’s just hope the Penguins’ journey goes a lot better than Lovell’s did.

For Dubas, the Apollo 13 analogy is especially true. He is going to be under enormous pressure to construct one more moon landing — another Stanley Cup for Crosby in just three years’ time. His greater accomplishment, though, might be to execute a seemingly impossible return and rescue mission for the franchise at the end of the Crosby era.

• 5 things we learned from Steelers moving to 2-0 with win at Broncos

• Tim Benz: Don't make Broderick Jones' postgame comment into something more than it was

• Penguins sign Sidney Crosby to 2-year contract extension

Sure, chasing another Cup for Crosby would be a heckuva storyline. Who wouldn’t want to see him skate off the ice with a fourth ring the way Jerome Bettis did in Detroit with the Steelers to end Super Bowl XL?

But those stories are few and far between. When Mario Lemieux retired from the Penguins the first time, it was after a first-round playoff loss to the hated Philadelphia Flyers. When he retired the second time (at the age of 40), it was in the middle of a 22-win season in 2006.

Jaromir Jagr departed under the cloud of an unpopular trade. Ben Roethlisberger went down in a blowout playoff loss in Kansas City. Terry Bradshaw could never sufficiently come back from an injured elbow. Barry Bonds couldn’t throw out Sid Bream before leaving for San Francisco. Franco Harris’ last game was as a Seahawk.

But at least Lemieux went out as a Penguin. Both times, passing the torch — to Jagr in 1997 and Crosby in 2006. Because of the precedent Lemieux set, the Penguins have always been a star-driven franchise. By the grace of the hockey gods, for the better part of five decades, they’ve had that kind of player.

Sometimes, more than one at a time.

Dubas needs to find that guy over the next three years. Through the draft, a trade or free agency, Penguins fans need that line of succession to feel comfortable in the post-Crosby era. It’s all many of them have ever known.

Rutger McGroarty may be good, but I’ve never heard anyone say he’s that good.

So, yeah, Kyle. Find the next Sid. That’s not too much to ask over the next 1,000 days or so is it?

If you can’t, at the very least have a contending team in place by the time Crosby is ready to walk away.

That should be Dubas’ true goal. It’s not about getting another Cup for Crosby by the summer of 2027. It’s about having a team worthy of playing the first game without him to open up 2027-28.

If the franchise can throw a little more silver Crosby’s way on the way out the door, even better. The goals don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

They might be mutually impossible, but not mutually exclusive.

If Dubas can pull it off, I’d consider it his “finest hour.”