The three-year contract Crosby signed as a rookie lasts through the coming season. The extension keeps him under contract for the next six seasons.

"Individual honors and scoring championships are great, but my No. 1 goal is to win the Stanley Cup," Crosby said today in a team statement. "I'd love to be a part of bringing the Cup back here to Pittsburgh."

Crosby, who turns 20 next month, won the Hart Trophy last month to become the league's youngest MVP since Wayne Gretzky.

The Penguins made Crosby the youngest captain in league history after last season, when he led the NHL with 120 points (36 goals, 84 assists). He helped the Penguins win 47 games after they won only 22 the season before.

"When you've got a guy who leads the league in scoring and wins the MVP award at the age of 19, you know have someone very special," general manager Ray Shero said. "But Sid also is a tremendous asset for this organization as a leader in the dressing room, and as the face of our franchise in the community."

The Penguins' 47-point improvement was the fourth best in NHL history. They were eliminated in five games by eventual Eastern Conference champion Ottawa in the first round of the playoffs.

Crosby's agent, Pat Brisson, did not immediately return a call. The team scheduled an afternoon conference call with Shero and Crosby.

The deal, though lucrative, was expected to give the Penguins some flexibility in signing other young stars, such as Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, in the coming seasons.

Under the NHL's collective bargaining agreement, Crosby's deal will count $8.7 million a year toward the team's salary cap. The Penguins' salary cap is just more than $50 million for this season and figures to be slightly higher in the 2008-09 season.

Crosby is set to earn a base salary of $850,000 this season, though he's expected to earn about four times that much with performance bonuses.

The Penguins have concentrated on signing players to fill roles that Shero felt the team lacked in its brief playoff appearance _ the team's first since 2001.

The biggest free-agent signings were $5 million, two-year deals with two former Stanley Cup winners, right wing goal-scorer Petr Sykora and defenseman Darryl Sydor.