Pinto, Batherson hoping Crosby greatness rubs off on young Senators

While young kids were watching their hockey idols for the first time on Sunday night in Sudbury, Ont., where the Pittsburgh Penguins played the Ottawa Senators in the annual Kraft Hockeyville game, a different kind of idol watch was happening.

On the ice, Senators forwards Shane Pinto and Drake Batherson were playing against their own childhood idol: Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby.  

Over the summer, Pinto and Batherson skated with Crosby to try to sharpen their own skills. But on Sunday night, Crosby, starting his 20th season in the NHL, put on a clinical performance, scoring two goals to lead his Penguins to a 5-2 victory over the Senators.  

On both goals, teammates found Crosby alone at the backdoor. On both goals, Pinto was on the ice when it happened.  

Batherson and Pinto epitomize the Senators’ last few years — plenty of talent but disappointing results on the ice. And they’ve been looking to Crosby to help them take it to the next level. 

Nowadays, many players train together in the summer despite being NHL adversaries. In Halifax, some of the best skates in the world take place, featuring Crosby and that other Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, superstar, Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon. Former Senators star and current Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza previously took part in those same summer skates. 

Now, the next generation of Senators stars is training with Crosby. Pinto and Batherson both had Crosby jerseys in their rooms as kids. Batherson, who grew up in Nova Scotia, started training with Crosby and MacKinnon every summer when he was playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. 

But for Pinto, this summer was a first. He had a childlike reaction to his first encounter outside of a game: “Holy, oh my god, it's Sidney Crosby!”  

Pinto was 15 years old when the Penguins made their second of two back-to-back Stanley Cup runs. “That's when I really fell in love with hockey, watching those playoff series, and it all came full circle this summer, just meeting him," Pinto said. "It was definitely pretty cool.” 

It was Batherson who convinced Pinto to join the skates. They have become friends on the Senators team, they love to golf and goof around together, and both are self-described easygoing guys.  

Pinto would have joined the skate the previous summer except for the little problem of a 41-game gambling-related suspension from the NHL.  

During that camp, Pinto and Batherson were placed on a line together in preparation for the possibility they would play together for the Senators.  

Most days, the camp consisted of individual skills practice, followed by a five-on-five games, for nine shifts, 45 seconds per shift. They were joined by NHLers John Tavares, Noah Dobson and Adam Fantilli. It was high-level summer hockey. 

And guess who was on the winning team most of the time?  

Sidney Crosby. 

“I think, with Sid and Nate, it's all about winning,” Batherson told Sportsnet.ca. “That's all they talk about. It's all they care about.”  

The two Senators, both in the mid-20s, marveled, watched and picked the brains of Crosby and MacKinnon throughout the skates.  

“He's a pretty open book,” Batherson said about Crosby. “You can ask him anything and talk about plays. Both him and Nate love the game, and they love chatting about hockey. So, I asked him questions all the time.” 

Batherson said Crosby is always one of the last to leave the ice. 

“When you see a guy like that working, you’ve got no other choice but to try and match that work ethic,” Batherson said. 

The Senators saw it all on display again on Sunday night. Late in the second period, Crosby stole the puck from mentee Batherson. In the third period, Crosby disrupted a potential Tim Stutzle breakaway with a nifty stick-check.  

A bright spot for Batherson was his assist on Nick Cousins' goal, the first of the game. But old bad habits also crept back into Batherson’s game: when the Senators found themselves down 4-2 with the goalie pulled, he casually accepted a pass with one hand on the stick, which he then turned over to Evgeni Malkin, of all people, who put it in the empty net to complete his hat trick on the night. 

Like many of the Senators, Batherson and Pinto are talented players but get caught out sometimes with their attention to detail. With Crosby, it’s not just the flash and dash, but all the nondescript little plays that he makes, even in a meaningless pre-season game, that tells a story. 

“It's their competitiveness,” Pinto said of Crosby and MacKinnon after the camp in Halifax. “It's a summer skate, but they're going at it like it’s a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.”  

“When I was leaving Halifax, I'm like, ‘I'm going to come back here for a month next summer’,” Pinto told Batherson.  

Senators’ fans are hoping that rubbing shoulders with hockey greats helps them turn around the fortunes of a talented but mostly losing team in recent years.