Pittsburgh Penguins

Sidney Crosby, Penguins all business on eve of Stanley Cup playoff opener

There was a time, just a few months back, when there was precious little reason to believe the Penguins would play hockey again before the 2020-21 season.

If then.

You can catch ALL of the action around the Penguins’ return to the ice right here on Channel 11 Saturday night starting at 7 p.m.!

And even as spring melted into summer, the chances that the NHL’s Return to Play concept would actually translate to games was hardly certain.

But while the pandemic that disrupted the 2019-20 season continues to loom over the sport -- and the rest of the world -- the Penguins are just hours away from playing a game that matters.

Matters a lot, really, because their meeting with Montreal Saturday shortly after 8 p.m. at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto will be the start of a best-of-five qualifying-round series whose winner will advance to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

And Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, whose passion for the game has few rivals, made it clear during a virtual press conference Friday that he's pretty fired up about the whole thing.

“It’s been a long wait,” he said. “A lot of anticipation built up over those months, not knowing what was going to happen. But we’re here, we’re excited. We’ve worked hard to get to this point. It’s fun, and we’re excited to play meaningful hockey.”

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