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For Dustin Wolf, it’s a memory that will last a lifetime.
Understandably, Sidney Crosby can’t quite remember their first meeting. He’s met a lot of kids in his 20 year NHL career, after all.
Back in the early-2010s when the Pittsburgh Penguins superstar was recovering from a concussion, he was skating in Los Angeles away from his team. With him, instead, was a young Wolf and his friend Brendan Brisson – the son of Pat Brisson, Crosby’s agent and Zary’s agent now.
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For a kid like Wolf, who was 10 or 11-years-old at the time, it was a surreal moment.
“As a kid, you either want to hold in your excitement or explode with excitement,” Wolf explained. “Maybe it would have been a little different if I was a player that skated out and was a forward, it’s a little different being on the other side of the puck.
“He probably has no idea, no recollection.”
Wolf’s not wrong. The L.A. skate wasn’t as memorable for Crosby as it was for him, but that’s not exactly a surprise. We’re talking about one of the greatest hockey players ever and a guy with 1,289 NHL games to his name prior to Tuesday night’s matchup with the Flames at the Saddledome.
“I don’t know, I have trouble remembering a few years ago,” Crosby said with a smile. “I skated for a while (back then), those skates were tough. I skated on my own for a long time.
“It tells you how fast things go and the hockey world’s small, you never know when you’re going to cross paths or play against different guys. At this point I’m playing against guys who I played against their dads, as well. That’s how it is.”
Meeting or playing against Crobsy is always a big deal for young NHLers, though. He was the league’s marquee star when guys like Matt Coronato and Connor Zary were growing up. They remember his Golden Goal in Vancouver in 2010 – Zary a little more fondly than Coronato, surely – and probably spent countless hours trying to replicate his moves on the ice.
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For Wolf, Tuesday marked his first chance to actually play against Crosby as a pro.
He’s hoping to stop a few more pucks than he did a decade-and-change ago.
“I was so young, so it was more just letting him do his thing and sit in the background and watch,” Wolf said. “For real, being that young and seeing a guy who had already won a couple of Cups at that point, it was pretty cool.
“(Now), I know his patented play is the net-side tip, so I’ll be pretty wary of that.”
There’s no worry about Wolf feeling starstruck on Tuesday night the way he was as a kid, but he admitted it’s a cool experience to be tasked with trying to stop a player you grew up idolizing.
That’s true of his young teammates, too. It isn’t necessarily intimidating, but playing against a guy like Crosby for the first time is … well, we’ll let Coronato explain it.
“Definitely one of my favourite players growing up, so being on the ice with him is super cool,” said Coronato, who played against Crosby and the Penguins last season. “Last year I feel like it definitely was, this year, I feel like maybe part of maturing is realizing the cool part of playing against a guy like that but realizing what’s important, which is going out and competing for two points.”
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That point was reiterated by Zary, who also played his first game against the Pens in 2023-24. You’ve got to allow yourself to enjoy the moment and then move on and focus on the job at hand.
“No matter what, it’s always cool,” Zary said. “That’s someone you grew up idolizing and someone who obviously has done so many special things in this league, it’s always going to be cool. Obviously, you’ve got to focus on your own game and everything that goes along with that, but there’s always going to be that part of you that think ‘Yeah, this is pretty cool.”
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