Sidney Crosby rarely loses his temper in public. Late in the second period on Monday, with the Utah Mammoth leading the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2, he lost it.
Andrew Peeke had spent the shift objecting to Crosby’s presence in front of rookie goaltender Sebastian Cossa, working him off the spot with a series of cross-checks. Crosby, having just been denied a goal, cross-checked him back. Then he swung an elbow into Peeke’s face.
Peeke skated off holding his jaw. Both men were sent to the box, Peeke for cross-checking and Crosby for elbowing, and neither stopped talking once they got there.
Peeke pointed at the scoreboard, where Utah’s lead was sitting. Then he brought his hands up to his eyes and made the universal gesture for a crying child.
Why was Sidney Crosby so frustrated?
Pittsburgh were midway through a four-game trip through the west that had already gone badly, Dan Muse’s side having lost 5-3 in Chicago two nights earlier despite Crosby scoring twice. Erik Karlsson opened the scoring on Monday before Utah replied with two of their own, and the captain spent the second period watching the game get away again.
Moments before the exchange with Peeke, he had come close to scoring and been stopped. Pensburgh described him as doubly annoyed by the time the cross-checks started.
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Peeke, meanwhile, is having a decent first season in his new surroundings. The 28-year-old from Parkland, Florida signed a one-year deal worth $1 million with Utah on July 3 after two and a half seasons with Boston, where he had finished last year with a career-high 17 points.
He is unlikely to be remembered for any of those numbers this week.
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