'It Was Rigged': NHL Fans Make Bold Allegations About the 2005 NHL Draft and Sidney Crosby

Back in 2005, the Pittsburgh Penguins had the chance to land a generational superstar in Sidney Crosby, and they did just that, drafting him with the No. 1 overall pick ahead of future talents like Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, Marc Staal and T.J. Oshie among others.

On Wednesday, the NHL celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the draft, with the league and the team posting throwback photos of the iconic Crosby draft as he is still going strong in the league today.

While many took it as a chance to look back on Crosby's stellar career in the NHL, winning three Stanley Cups and having some incredible seasons, some fans took it as a chance to call out the league for rigging the draft so that he would end up in Pittsburgh with their new arena.

One fan even compared the situation to the NHL rigging the draft in their mind for the Edmonton Oilers and Connor McDavid ahead of the team getting a new arena, and while there's likely no truth to it, when it happens every so often, fans will start to believe that the league influence these moves.

Now, heading into 2026, there are many fans fearing that the same may happen with Gavin McKenna as the Penguins look to land a new centrepiece to take over from Crosby, and if that happens, expect even more of those fans to be in an uproar.

Ultimately, teams sometimes just get lucky, while others struggle with luck over decades of uncertainty and inconsistency, and in this case, it's just fans being upset that the Penguins landed one of the NHL's all-time greatest players with plenty of lottery luck.