Sidney Crosby out 6 weeks after core muscle surgery for sports hernia

Sidney Crosby has officially had surgery on a sports hernia that has been nagging the Pittsburgh Penguins’ captain since the beginning of the season.

Update 10 a.m. ET: The Penguins themselves have confirmed that Sidney Crosby had successful core muscle surgery to repair a sports hernia and will be out a minimum of six weeks. Original story as follows.

Pittsburgh Penguins’ captain Sidney Crosby is reportedly considering surgery for a sports hernia, an issue that has been bothering the forward since training camp, according to The Athletic on Wednesday. Crosby missed the Penguins’ latest game against the New York Rangers on Tuesday due to a lower-body injury, now reported as a sports hernia by Pittsburgh reporter Rob Rossi.

The surgery would have an estimated recovery time of four to six weeks, putting Crosby back out on the ice as early as mid-December or as late as the holiday break, should the Penguins’ captain say yes to the procedure.

According to The Athletic, Crosby had known about the issue in training camp and had been dealing with it, yet decided against surgery with the Penguins’ injury woes in the early goings of the season. Pittsburgh, in the first month of the season, lost Evgeni Malkin, Alex Galchenyuk, Bryan Rust and Nick Bjugstad for varying degrees of time due to injury.

As of mid-November, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang are the latest Penguins to succumb to the injury bug that has plagued the team all season long.

During the first month and a half of the NHL season, Crosby has been a point-per-game player with five goals and 12 assists in 17 games as the team’s leading point producer.

Crosby has yet to decide on surgery to repair the sports hernia, but the team would reportedly have their captain undergo it sooner rather than later so he can return faster to a depleted Penguins’ lineup. Surgery is not Crosby’s only option, as he could delay it to the offseason and instead work through it with steroid injections and physical therapy, but there is risk that he could aggravate the issue again.

Despite the name, a sports hernia is not a hernia in the traditional sense. Sports hernias are soft tissue injuries in the lower abdominal area that occur in sports players who often make sudden stops and changes to their movements.

Crosby has a lengthy injury history — mostly consisting of concussions — but hasn’t missed significant time since 2012-13 when he missed 13 games with a broken jaw. Sports hernia surgery wouldn’t knock Crosby out of the Penguins’ lineup for too long, but with Pittsburgh fighting for one of the top three spots in the Metropolitan Division, his absence will be felt on an injury-riddled roster.