Crosby accepts blame for exit

UNIONDALE, N. Y. — After the handshake line ended and reality began to set in, Sidney Crosby stood at the tunnel entrance leading to the Penguins’ dressing room.

Before each player stepped off the ice at Nassau Coliseum, they were greeted by the captain. An encouraging word here. A stick tap on the pads there.

Then, after doing what he could to lift up teammates, Crosby stepped in front of a microphone — and pointed a finger at himself.

“It’s such a small margin for error,” Crosby said. “I feel like I didn’t make a big play, whether it’s overtime or adding to a lead when we’re up 2-1.

“I look at some chances I had. Those kinds of things are so important.”

Part of this is Crosby being Crosby.

When teams lose, leaders step up to shoulder the blame, say the right thing and take the burden off of scapegoats. Crosby especially holds himself to the highest standard as one of the game’s all-time greats.

But there’s also truth to his comments as well.

Crosby helped set the tone for the series with a possessed Game 1 that included a goal. Then in the five games after that? He tallied just one assist.

It continued during Wednesday’s 5- 3 loss, when Crosby failed to tally a point and was on the ice for three of the five Islanders goals.

Crosby, on a separate instance in the postgame news conference, was the one pointing out that minus-3 statistic.

The defensive shortcomings were just as surprising as the lack of offensive production. This season in particular, Crosby surely will wind up on a number of Selke Trophy ballots. Who knows, he might even be a finalist. Yet, on two instances in particular, a generational talent had a chance to make a defensive play and didn’t.

On the Islanders’ first goal, Anthony Beauvillier raced past the flatfooted Crosby and won a foot race before burning Jarry.

Then in the second period, with the Penguins holding a one- goal lead, Josh Bailey ripped a crossice pass through Crosby’s outstretched stick to set Brock Nelson up for the game-tying goal.

“We made some big mistakes obviously tonight,” Crosby said “I miss a guy on a couple chances that end up in the back of our net. Just a play here or there really was the difference. I’ve got to come up with that on either side of the puck.”

Keep the core together?

Crosby’s underwhelming postseason will only contribute even more to some of the questions that surrounds the Penguins in the offseason. Alongside Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, the Penguins’ core has hosted three Stanley Cup parades and added several chapters to the club’s championship tradition.

As recently as 2016 and 2017, they looked like a group built to keep on contending for years to come. However, after three consecutive first-round exits and four consecutive series losses, there will be questions about the direction this team will go.

Asked how he would respond to someone who said the Penguins should shake up the core, Crosby answered, “They’ve been saying that for four years, right?”

“I know that the three of us, we want to win,” he said. “We’ll do whatever we can to compete to try to do that every year.”

While the first-round exit was the same result as it’s been in recent years, the thing that is different is that there are new bosses in charge of that decision. General manager Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke will ultimately be the ones who decide if, when or how the Penguins will move on from the group that brought so much to Pittsburgh.

Asked if he’ll weigh in, Crosby said: “I’ve never one to try to be GM. I’m not going to start now.”

“As far as what I can see and what I feel, there’s zero doubt in my mind that the group that we had is a really good group and we had an opportunity here,” he continued. “That’s why it stings so much.”

Asked a similar question, coach Mike Sullivan likewise doubled down on his faith in the big three.

“I believe in the core,” Sullivan said. “This is the best core group of players that I’ve ever been around, bar none. They’re generational talents that can still compete at a very high level and they’ve shown it game in and game out.”

Style changes?

The Penguins prioritized pace above all else with so many of their recent moves.

Speed is the first word that comes to mind when it comes to the additions of Mike Matheson, Kasperi Kapanen, Jason Zucker, Brandon Tanev and others who have joined the lineup in the past two seasons.

But is it worth wondering if it’s time to pivot in some way stylistically?

“We didn’t lose this series because we’re not big enough,” Sullivan said. “Where the roster goes moving forward, that will be a discussion for the offseason. But this particular group that we had, I can’t say enough about them.”