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TSN hosts keep pushing Crosby-to-Leafs trade ideas

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Nov 27 2024, 3:14 pm
TSN hosts keep pushing Crosby-to-Leafs trade ideas
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

The Toronto Maple Leafs.

According to a trio of popular TSN hosts, the next trade target could include one of the NHL’s all-time most iconic players: Sidney Crosby himself.

While Crosby — who has eight goals and 13 assists in 21 games — has still been among the NHL’s upper echelon, the same can’t be said for the only team he’s ever known.

With just 18 points in 23 games, the Pittsburgh Penguins sit 29th in the 32-team NHL and are just two points up on last-place Chicago. Though Crosby has spent his entire NHL career with Pittsburgh since being selected first overall in the 2005 Entry Draft, TSN’s Bryan Hayes believes there’s a possibility he hits the trade market given the current state of the franchise.

“It’s the Maple Leafs, I think, that would make more sense than anybody else,” Hayes said on TSN to Jay Onrait this week. “If it ever got to the point where [Crosby] would be open to having this conversation [of a trade]… Toronto, in my opinion, has got to pick up the phone and call Pittsburgh and do whatever they can to make that happen.”

After inking a two-year extension this offseason, Crosby is signed through 2027 at a cap hit of $8.7 million per season, mimicking his jersey number of 87.

With Crosby having a full no-move clause, all the power is in his hands to veto any possible trade. And having three Stanley Cups in his back pocket, the desire to go ring-chasing might not be superseded by his goal to spend his whole career in one place.

Still, there’s a strong push from Hayes to get the iconic Canadian superstar to play for a pro team based in his home country for the first time.

“The Leafs need someone up the middle of the ice to put them over the top,” Hayes explained earlier this week on TSN 1050’s OverDrive show.

Co-host Jamie McLennan also endorsed the idea of Toronto acquiring the 37-year-old star.

“One hundred per cent. I don’t think it’s a question, they need depth,” he added.

And the third trio of the OverDrive crew, former Leafs forward Jeff O’Neill, also felt that Crosby might be more open to a trade than he’s publicly been leading on.

“If you just sat down with him man to man and asked, ‘Do you really want to stay no matter how bad you guys are?’ I’d have a hard time believing he’d say yes,” O’Neill said.

Whether TSN’s hosts earnestly believe Crosby heading to Toronto is a possibility or are just looking to fill the airtime during the midst of November isn’t quite clear, but if Pittsburgh remains near the bottom of the league standings, don’t expect the Crosby trade conversations to die down anytime soon.

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