FINALLY!!! A Sidney Injury Update!!!

WHEW! It's turning out to be a BUSY, BUSY day in Pens Nation! There was the trade deadline, there's a game in New York tonight at 7:00, and now we FINALLY got what we've all been clamoring for: news about Sid's recovery progress. From Dave Molinari of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Online (since the section of the article about Sid is short, I'm posting it in it's entirety):

Sidney Crosby has abandoned hope of returning to the Penguins' lineup ahead of schedule.

In fact, he still doesn't have a target date for getting back into uniform.

Crosby has been out since getting a high ankle sprain Jan. 18. The initial prognosis was that he would be out 6-to-8 weeks, but Crosby said nine days ago that he hoped to resume playing before that.

Week 6 of his recovery will end Friday, however, and because Crosby didn't accompany the Penguins on the road trip that begins with a game against the New York Islanders tonight at Nassau Coliseum, it's pretty clear he won't play anytime soon.

He's just itching to come back.

The good news for the Penguins is that, after being off the ice since Wednesday, Crosby plans to resume skating this week. He said he stopped not because of a setback in his recovery, but because there was no real point in continuing.

"The purpose of skating was to stay in shape," he said. "Obviously, I knew at some point that I wasn't going to be playing within the next week or so.

"For me to skate for a month before I was going to be back would be pretty useless, wearing myself out for no reason.

"I just realized it's going to be a while. I just have to be patient and not waste energy every day."

Oh, THANK YOU, Dave!!! Thank you for getting Sid to give us a real answer about what's going on. That's all we wanted!

(Friend of The Show Michelle B. deserves our thanks for finding this article!)