Penguins' Crosby fully healthy for training camp

NEW YORK -- Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby didn't know in July if he would need surgery on his wrist or if he would be able to start the 2014-15 season with the rest of his teammates. It was a nervous time.

"[I didn't have] a deadline, but you start to add up the days of when camp is going to start, when the season starts, and knowing all that stuff you want to make a decision," Crosby said Monday during the NHL's Player Media Tour. "There is a window there to possibly wait a little bit longer and doing that there are no guarantees either. You try to get as much information as you can and make a decision."

Crosby's decision was to hold off on surgery and hope that multiple injections in his ailing wrist would work. He said Monday that he made the right decision, that he is healthy and ready to start training camp on time later this month.

He won the Hart Trophy last season after leading the NHL with 104 points, 17 more than the next-closest scorer (Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf).

"All good, it's all good," said Crosby, who participated in an informal skate in Pittsburgh before flying to New York on Monday.

"I'm really happy I didn't have to get surgery. It's one of those things where you don't want to have to deal with that halfway through the summer, when you're waiting, thinking it's going to heal and it's not healing. It's nice to not have to worry about it. Everything is as it would usually be."

Crosby said he injured his wrist when St. Louis Blues forward Ryan Reaves hit him at center ice on March 23 at Consol Energy Center. Reaves is 6-foot-1, 221 pounds.

"Probably not the best guy to get hit by," Crosby said.

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He said his hand got caught underneath him and his wrist jammed.

"I jammed it and ended up falling on it in an awkward position," Crosby said. "At the time it didn't feel great, but at the time I didn't think it would be something that would be dragging on for that long."

Crosby played more than 24 minutes in that game against the Blues. A week later, he scored two goals in a 4-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks. But he went on to score only one more goal in 18 games before the Penguins were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in a seven-game series loss to the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Second Round.

Crosby said his wrist bothered him most on faceoffs, so much so that he opted to take fewer.

"It's just little things that become pretty routine didn't feel routine sometimes," Crosby said.

However, Crosby refused to use his wrist injury as an excuse for his struggles in the playoffs. He had one goal and eight assists, and didn't register a point in the final three games against the Rangers, all losses.

"Guys are dealing with that stuff in the playoffs anyway," Crosby said. "I think everyone has different things, bumps and bruises, all that stuff. That was just something I had to deal with and I'm sure there was a laundry list of stuff that everyone else had to deal with. I don't really know how you gauge it, but like everyone else, that's something I had to deal with."

Crosby said the doctors have told him he is fine, that his risk of reinjuring the wrist is no greater now than before he hurt it in the first place. He said he has been training with contact and no limitations, so if something were wrong with his wrist, he would know it by now.

"I think like anything they tell you it's possible, but it would have to take a pretty big whack, something very similar to what caused it," Crosby said.

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