Acquired by Montreal in a blockbuster trade with the Nashville Predators, Weber has big shoes to fill, but it won't be long before Canadiens supporters fall in love with him quarterbacking the power play.
Weber will turn 31 on Aug. 14 and will wear his usual No. 6.
The veteran and three-time Norris Trophy candidate had 20 goals and 31 assists in 78 games last season. It was the third most productive season of his career.
Dupuis, of course, retired in December after dealing with blood clots, but he remained an integral part of the Pittsburgh Penguins on their march to the Stanley Cup.
The 37-year-old had his day with the Cup over the weekend, and while he called winning it as a spectator "bittersweet," according to NHL.com's Sean Farrell, Crosby made sure to remind Dupuis of the crucial role he played on the team.
"You get the Cup, you want to celebrate," Dupuis said. "But at the same time I got a gift by the mail. Basically, it's a book of all the pictures of all the good stuff we went through. It came from Nova Scotia, so you guys can figure out who it came from, but (Crosby) couldn't give it to me during the season, he saw me skating a little bit.
"And he sent it (Saturday), before my day with the Cup, so he knew what he was going to get me right (in the heart)."
What a captain, that Crosby.
"This one is certainly different," Dupuis added. "The first, you win one with the team we had in 2009 and we thought we would repeat and repeat, but you see how hard it is to win this trophy. And with everything that has happened to me since 2009, that I had to stop playing, this one has a different taste to it."
A good taste, still, to be sure.
Dupuis celebrated his day with Stanley by sharing it with family and friends. His kids ate cereal out of it and the Cup ended up in each youngster's bed, too.
Let's face it, there's little better to wake up next to.
Oleksiak was rendered nearly speechless on Sunday night after his 16-year-old sister, Penny Oleksiak, captured the silver medal for Canada in the women's 100m butterfly at the summer games in Rio.
I don't even know what to say right now, that was one of the most intense and amazing things I've seen 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Penny finished second to Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom who captured gold. For Penny it marks her second medal in as many days, after helping Canada claim bronze in the 4x100m freestyle on Saturday.
Penny Oleksiak, sister of Jamie Oleksiak, has just set a new Canadian and World Junior record in the 100m butterfly at #Rio2016
Of course, the elder Oleksiak is also a decorated athlete himself after winning a bronze medal as a member of Canada's World Junior hockey team in 2012.
Daniel Carr is hoping to cement a permanent spot with the Montreal Canadiens, following his first taste of the NHL in 2015-16.
After four years playing at Union College and a season-and-a-half in the AHL, Carr scored a call-up from the Canadiens last season, a stint he believes paid huge dividends in his development.
"I learned that if given the chance, I can compete there," Carr told Matt Cudzinowski of canadiens.com "That was the biggest thing, knowing that and coming into the summer making sure to give myself the biggest chance to get back there this year. There’s nothing quite like skating onto the ice at the Bell Centre, so you want to give yourself the best chance to get back to it."
Carr enjoyed a solid NHL debut, contributing six goals and nine points in 23 games. He held the third-highest shooting percentage on the team and ranked third in goals-per-60-minutes among Canadiens with at least 200 played, besting the likes of P.K. Subban, Max Pacioretty, and Tomas Plekanec.
Carr is hoping factors that previously made him a successful scorer - including three 20-goal campaigns in college - will make him a valuable asset to the Canadiens.
"That’s my game, being strong on the puck down low, beating guys off the wall to the net, and making little plays in tight to score goals. The better you get at that, the more chances you’re going to get," Carr said. "Last year, I think I started to learn the details of the NHL game, and I learned what I have to do to be effective at both ends of the rink. It was good going into the summer knowing the parts of my game I had to improve to be there all season long."
Carr should enter training camp as one of Montreal's few left-wing options with NHL experience, giving him an increased chance at solidifying a full-time roster spot.
A video posted by Alexander Ovechkin (@aleksandrovechkinofficial) on
While his ice skating may be powerful, Alex Ovechkin's stride on roller blades appears to be much more graceful.
The Washington Capitals star recently took to Gorky Park in Moscow along with fiancee Nastya Shubskaya and rapper T-Killah, among others, where he strapped on blades and unleashed his inner Michael Jackson with a flawless moonwalk.
Enjoy the pleasure skating while you can, Alex. Training camp and the World Cup of Hockey are just around the corner.
Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury is thrilled to have etched his name on the Stanley Cup for a second time, but he's hoping to play a greater role in team success next season.
The 31-year-old is heading into his 13th season with the Penguins, and he's ready to regain his role as full-time starter after losing the job to rookie Matt Murray, and rumors this offseason of a potential trade.
"I love Pittsburgh, and the Penguins are my team; I want to stay with them for the rest of my career," Fleury said, according to NHL.com's Robert Laflamme. "I had some good conversations with management after the season. Nothing is written in stone. I want to come to camp ready to win my job back. I have to get back to the same level of play and help the team win games."
Fleury backstopped the Penguins to a 35-17-6 record, with a .921 save percentage and 2.29 GAA during the regular season, but a late-season concussion and shaky return to the net forced the club to start Murray throughout the playoffs.
Fleury, in turn, made sure to aid the team in any way he could, primarily by keeping his teammates loose.
"It's a different feeling when you're sitting on the bench, you're not sweating, you're not battling with your teammates to win the Cup," Fleury said. "Having said that, I'm happy to have my name on it a second time.
"I did my best to keep everyone upbeat and in a better mood around the team. I wanted to play, but that was the situation. The team was winning. The most important thing for me was to be a good teammate."
Fleury enjoyed his day with Lord Stanley in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec on Saturday. A day that included eating cereal out of the cup with his daughters, a parade through town, and a stop at Montreal Children's Hospital. All of which likely eases the pain of a lost job between the pipes.
The older Sidney Crosby gets, the older you get. It's math. Or science. Both, maybe.
The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar turned 29 on Sunday. Seriously. Now only a year shy of 30, there's no better time to reflect on what has so far been a storybook career.
Here are 29 random thoughts and observations on No. 87 on his 29th birthday:
1. No one is allowed to call him "Sid the Kid" anymore. It's over. He's a man. Accept it.
2. Not only was Crosby born in 1987, he was born on Aug. 7. So, yeah, 08/07/1987. Symmetry.
3. Have you ever met a hockey fan who said, "I don't like Sidney Crosby"? Sorry, but Philadelphia Flyers fans don't count. Let's face it, he's mostly perfect.
4. Sports and fandom are irrational, so I suppose not everyone has to like Crosby. But this is for sure: you have to respect him.
5. Crosby's birthday, during the quietest days of the offseason, is the perfect time to sit down quietly and look at the back of his hockey card (or visit his Hockey Reference page). And it's something, yeah. The 2015-16 season was his 11th in the NHL, somehow. They were right: the children do grow up so fast. Crosby's played in over 70 games in seven of those seasons, recording 100-or-more points in five of them.
6. It's easy for forget, because it was so long ago, but Crosby had 220 points in his first 160 games in the NHL, as an 18- and 19-year-old. Ridiculous.
7. It's crazy how dominant Crosby was before his concussion on New Year's Day at the 2011 Winter Classic. He played only one more game that season (2010-11), and finished with 32 goals and 34 assists in 41 games. His 0.78 goals per game and 1.61 points per game remain the highest marks of his career when playing at least 40 games.
8. Concussions limited Crosby to only 22 games the following season, but he averaged a remarkable 1.68 points per game.
9. Crosby's 1.06 points-per-game average last season was the lowest mark of his career. And yet, it may go down as his most memorable campaign, as he raised the Stanley Cup and won his first Conn Smythe Trophy.
10. He's actually trending in the wrong direction when it comes to production:
Season
GP
Points Per Game
2012-13*
36
1.56
2013-14
80
1.30
2014-15
77
1.09
2015-16
80
1.06
* Lockout-shortened season
11. More importantly, though, Crosby's been healthy. Hockey needs him on the ice as the face of the sport, not the face of concussions.
12. Crosby ranks fifth all time in points per game, and he's played in an era that can only be described as the opposite of those whose company he keeps:
Rank
Player
Points Per Game
1
Wayne Gretzky
1.921
2
Mario Lemieux
1.883
3
Mike Bossy
1.497
4
Bobby Orr
1.393
5
Crosby
1.327
13. Crosby's 1.105 points-per-game mark in the playoffs (137 points in 124 games) ranks 12th all time.
14. That two of the greatest hockey players to ever take the ice have played exclusively for Pittsburgh is insane. Hopefully Penguins supporters realize how lucky they are.
15. Think about how special Crosby is. Now, look at those points-per-game numbers above and think about how dominant Lemieux and Gretzky were.
16. Ask yourself: what hasn't Crosby won?
17. The answer: the World Cup of Hockey. And that likely changes in about eight weeks.
18. Crosby's remarkable track record is all the more jarring when it's written down:
2 Stanley Cups
1 Conn Smythe Trophy
2 Winter Olympics gold medals
1 Golden Goal (on home soil, no less)
2 Hart and Art Ross trophies
3 Ted Lindsay Awards
1 Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy
World Junior gold and silver
World Championship gold
19. One thing is for certain: Crosby will never win the Memorial Cup. What a failure.
20. Somehow, Crosby's played in only one All-Star Game, missing four due to injury. Yeah, as many as John Scott.
21. Also remarkable is how controversy-free Crosby's career has been off the ice. He's a model citizen. He lived with Mario for five years, after all.
22. Crosby's 62 regular-season points away from 1,000. That'll happen in February or March 2017. Fun!
23. Among active players, Crosby's points-per-game averages in the regular season and playoffs (1.327 and 1.105, as noted) are tops. His teammate Evgeni Malkin ranks second on both lists (1.180 and 1.040).
24. Crosby's earned slightly under $87.5 million - of course - in cash so far in his career, according to Spotrac.
25. If you're Canadian, watching this video will never, ever get old:
26. It had to be Crosby. Who else could it possibly have been?
27. Take a minute to think about the sky-high expectations placed on Crosby when he came into the league, when the Penguins were flirting with bankruptcy. It's so hard for kids to live up to the hype - because they're kids - but Crosby has delivered, and more.
28. He's won everything, his name is twice on the Stanley Cup, but this is the lasting image of his career so far, because it has to be.
