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Wednesday, 07 September 2011 13:58

Written by Seth Rorabaugh

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby talked to the media today for the first time since the end of the 2010-11 season to discuss his health. He has been sidelined since Jan. 5 due to a concussion.

Flanked by concussion specialists Dr. Michael Collins of the UPMPC Sports Medicine Concussion Program and Dr. Ted Carrick of the Carrick Institute as well as Penguins general manager Ray Shero, little was revealed on when Crosby could potentially could return to the lineup.

While all parties expressed optimism he will return to the lineup at some point, it was stressed that Crosby would not return until he was 100 percent.

When asked if Crosby could be ready by the time the Penguins open their season Oct. 6 in Vancouver, Collins replied he had "no earthly idea."

Crosby also addressed the idea of banning all head shots saying, "As a league, as a union, I think we've all educated ourselves a lot in the last six or seven months. I think it can go further. At the end of the day I don't think there's a reason not to take them out. I read a stat that there were 50,000 hits a year. We're talking about 50 head shots. To take those out, the game's not going to change. As professionals, the odd time maybe there's accidental contact, but for the most part you can control what's going on out there. If a guy's gotta be responsible with his stick, you have to be responsible with the rest of your body. Whether it's accidental or not accidental, you have to be responsible out there."

EN Says: Nothing discussed today was all that surprising. Head injuries are a complete question mark in regards to recovery time. Unlike other body parts which generally have a "normal" timeline of recovery, a head injury is different for everyone.

Evgeni Malkin's knee injury was devastating, but it had a prescribed timeline of four to six months required for recovery. Sidney Crosby's head injury has no neat, orderly timeframe. It will take time and no one, not Crosby, not the team or even his doctors, have an idea of how much it will take.

Crosby's position on banning all head shots was interesting. When asked about the subject last season, Crosby was a little wishy washy and said, "That's a great question. I'd like to say that, but it's more than just saying that. There's got to be obviously some clarity and everything has got to be looked at how you do that. It's a pretty fast game. There may be times where guys don't target the head and they may come in contact with the head. What do you do in that situation? Banning them would be the easiest and safest route but at the same time, there are times where there is going to be accidental contact. How do you deal with that? As far as targeting the head, no matter if it's from the blind side or straight on, if someone targets the head, I think that should be banned. But when you're looking at accidental contact and stuff, that's going to be up to people making those disciplinary decisions."

UPDATE: Video of the press conference:

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written by Bones, September 07, 2011 - 02:55 PM

I got more information out of it than I expected, but yeah, there really wasn't any big revelations today. It sounds like Sid, his doctors, and the team are all on the same page about him not even thinking about returning before he is 100%. But what other answer could we expect?

Everybody needs to lay off the belief that the press conference needed to be cancelled due to this morning's tragedy. Hard enough to back out of a press conference on a couple hours notice when just the local media is involved, but there was national media from both the US and Canada there today as well.

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