Tim Benz: Sorry, Sid, but this time the call is coming from inside the house

Over roughly three decades of covering sports — almost 24 of those years in this city — I’ve never seen a more copacetic relationship between local reporters and a big-time superstar than the one that exists between Sidney Crosby and the media contingent in Pittsburgh.

Throughout the vast majority of his career, Crosby has always been friendly, accommodating and exceedingly professional. He also comes off as a genuine, three-dimensional person in both on and off-the-record conversations.

As a result, when he tells us something, we usually believe him.

Such has been the case over the past few years during the seemingly endless torrent of stories emanating from the international media about trade possibilities for Crosby now that the Penguins are in a rebuilding mode and he is knocking on the door of 40 years old.

Go chase another Stanley Cup or two before he retires, right? Why wouldn’t he want to be traded?

Why? Well, we’ve been telling you why.

Because Crosby has been telling us he wants to stay. He hasn’t given us a reason to believe he’s lying for 20 years. Why should we treat his stance on this topic any differently?

Which is why when Crosby’s agent Pat Brisson refused to rule out the prospect of a Crosby trade sometime in the future, it caught everybody’s attention in Pittsburgh.

“Let’s put it this way: It’s always a possibility, you know?” Brisson said in The Athletic last week. “It’s been three years (the Penguins) haven’t made the playoffs. It all depends on how Sid is going to be and how the team is going to do. I maintain the same position that I do believe that he should be playing playoff hockey every year. In my opinion.”

This story feels different. This one feels more real. This is coming from his agent. The team might be sold — again. Evgeni Malkin is likely gone at the end of the year. Mike Sullivan is in New York. Linemates Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell are trade candidates.

Not to mention, Crosby didn’t exactly blow off this latest round of trade talk as emphatically as he has before.

Maybe there was fire to the smoke for a change. Hey, the guy is allowed to change his mind after two decades and three straight years of missing the playoffs.

But when Crosby met a select group of local reporters on Monday, he seemed fatigued about having to address the trade conversation yet again.

“There’s a lot of narratives out there, and I don’t think a lot of those have come from me,” Crosby said via TribLive’s Seth Rorabaugh. “I can’t keep having to answer the same question again because of these narratives. If people want to write about that or say that, that’s fine. But I can’t really control that.”

No. Crosby can’t control that. But his agent sure can. He’s the one who said it and deviated from the … what’s the word I’m looking for … “narrative” that the local media has been advancing on Crosby’s behalf for the past few seasons.

“This is where I want to be. I love it here,” Crosby said.

Yeah. That one. That narrative.

Again, I don’t doubt Crosby’s sincerity on the matter. But based on what Brisson said last week, he shouldn’t be surprised it’s a talking point in Pittsburgh.

Pssst! Hey, Sid, the call is coming from inside the house on this one.

This isn’t a column in Montreal, or a podcast on TSN, or a radio segment in Colorado. This is your agent on the record.

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On Monday, Crosby indicated that he was surprised by Brisson’s quotes.

“I was,” Crosby said. “Pat and I didn’t have a conversation prior to him talking when he did or addressing the media. I think he knows that it’s not easy when you lose. And I think that there’s probably a part of him that knows that having to answer questions like this time and time again — I was asked the same thing last training camp, I was asked the same thing after the season, I’m asked it again — my stance hasn’t changed, but circumstances have.”

Indeed. Which, again, lends credibility to the conversation.

“So I get I have to answer those questions. But I think (Brisson) knows that it’s tough having to go through that and the losing on top of it,” Crosby added. “I think Pat knows how much I put into it, how much I love it and how much I want to be in the playoffs. Whether those quotes were taken for what they were or there was a different question that got put into those quotes, I don’t know. I don’t know the backstory.”

OK, then. If that’s the case, then Brisson should be on the record with Pittsburgh media in the same way that Crosby was Monday. Or, he should retract his quotes in the same forum at The Athletic with Pierre LeBrun.

To me, it looks like Brisson is trying to run a “good cop-bad cop” give-and-go with Crosby and one of the two isn’t handling the public relations puck particularly well.

That’s probably because Crosby’s career and track record with the media have been so good that they’ve never had to do anything like this before.

As I’ve previously written, I’ve been told Brisson’s comments have nothing to do with the potential sale of the Penguins. My guess is that Crosby is on board with being in Pittsburgh throughout a rebuilding process up to a certain line.

That line is probably, well, his actual line on the ice.

I’m assuming he doesn’t want to see Rakell and/or Rust traded, and this is probably a scare tactic to make general manager Kyle Dubas promise those two won’t be dealt.

At least not at the start of the year.

That’s my “narrative” and I’m sticking to it. That said, I’m allowed to change my mind too.

Crosby has never given me reason to do so. But if his agent keeps making comments like these, he can’t be upset if we keep asking about it.