Sidney Crosby getting different vibe at home

PITTSBURGH -- So much was familiar for Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby on Tuesday, but so much more was different as he found himself in a team setting inside the home dressing room at Consol Energy Center for the first time since the Pittsburgh Penguins played Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final three months earlier.
Crosby was in his normal stall, but John Tavares of the New York Islanders sat to one side of him and Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks sat to the other. When he looked to the far end of the room, the goalies weren't Penguins teammates Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray; instead, he saw Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens, Corey Crawford of the Chicago Blackhawks and Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals, who had tried to derail the Penguins' championship ride in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

He spent Monday watching the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Washington Redskins in the opening game of the NFL season for the hometown team; however, he celebrated the victory not with Penguins teammates but with players with several different allegiances.
The World Cup of Hockey 2016 has made for strange bedfellows in a strange setting as Team Canada arrived here to prepare for its final pretournament game, against Team Russia on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN2, SN, TVA Sports).

The World Cup starts at Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Saturday, when Team Canada plays Team Czech Republic (8 p.m. ET; ESPNEWS, SN, TVA Sports).
"It's a little different," Crosby said Tuesday as he surveyed the locker room and saw many new faces, including Brent Burns, Marc-Eduard Vlasic, Joe Thornton and Logan Couture from the San Jose Sharks, the team the Penguins defeated in six games to win the Stanley Cup in June. "Some of these guys are a part of some of the biggest rivals we have. I'm sure it is a little weird for them too.
"With that being said, we all have one goal here. Whenever you play for Team Canada you understand that and you put those things aside. We're all trying to achieve one thing. A lot of us have been in this situation before, and we are trying to come together and do the best job we can."
Not only did Crosby have unfamiliar people in his dressing room, he was preparing to face players with which he is all too familiar.
Evgeni Malkin, who has won the Stanley Cup twice with Crosby, was not in Pittsburgh's locker room. Instead he was with Team Russia at the Penguins practice facility, preparing to play against Crosby and Team Canada.

Malkin and Crosby have played against each other in international tournaments, most recently at the 2015 IIHF World Championship. But it remains a shock to the system for each.
"We just try to go out there and play our best," Crosby said. "We'll see. It's an exhibition game [Wednesday], so it's a little different."
Plus, for whatever reason, Crosby and Malkin rarely have gone head-to head when Canada and Russia have played.
Mike Babcock, coach of Team Canada and also the coach for gold medal-winning Canada at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and 2010 Vancouver Olympics, didn't match Crosby against Malkin very often.
Could that change Wednesday? Possibly. But nobody was tipping his hand Tuesday.
"I never really thought much about it," Babcock said when asked about the matchup. "I have a good memory, just short. I don't go back and look at all that. I just know at that time we figured out what gave us the best chance to win. So who knows why he was playing against someone else. I don't have the answer to that."

If Malkin and Crosby were to go head-to-head, likely much to the delight of Penguins fans at Consol Energy Center, who would initiate the first bit of contact between the two?
"That's a good question," Crosby said, flashing a smile. "It hasn't happened in however many years. But we'll see. If we do, it will be in good fun. We're both pretty intense, so it could happen. You never know."
Almost anything can happen when Team Canada and Team Russia meet in tournament play. It doesn't matter if it is a pretournament game in Pittsburgh or a World Cup of Hockey knockout game in Toronto in two weeks.
"We have two very proud hockey countries," said Price, who will start for Team Canada on Wednesday. "We're both very proud of our teams."
That pride and the rivalry, which took full flight with the 1972 Summit Series, insures no game between the hockey superpowers is taken lightly. Crosby, as much as anyone, knows this after winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals with Canada.
He knows the pretournament game, despite not counting for anything other than bragging rights, is bigger than any of the story lines it has generated, including the Crosby vs. Malkin showdown on their home ice.
"It's still Canada [and] Russia, and I think we both understand how big that is," Crosby said. "There's a lot of expectations on both countries when it comes to hockey. I think we can both relate to that a lot and appreciate that, but I think once we go out there it's competitive. It's healthy competition. We are both trying to do our best to help our team win."