The Athletic is reporting that Pittsburgh Penguins captain and star forward Sidney Crosby is considering surgery for an injury he's been dealing with since training camp. The Athletic says it has learned Crosby has a sports hernia that was aggravated during a 3-2 shootout win over Chicago n Saturday.
The report stated Crosby opted against having surgery when the Penguins were facing multiple injuries earlier this season that kept several players on the sidelines, including Evgeni Malkin. If he opts to have the surgery now, he's looking at four-to-six weeks before he can get back in the lineup.
The Athletic says another option is for a steroid injection and physical therapy, which could possibly allow him to delay surgery until the offseason. However, should Crosby aggravate the injury again, in-season surgery would become a requirement, rather than an option.
A sports hernia is a painful, soft tissue injury that occurs in the groin area, and most often with sports that require sudden changes of direction or intense twisting movements, such as hockey. For Crosby, his situation was made worse Saturday night when his left skate blade stuck into the ice after the leg knocked against the left leg of Chicago's Erik Gustafsson. Not long after, he took a shot from Gustafsson of his left foot, although The Athletic says its sources report no injury to Crosby due to that.
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