How some Penguins ended up with unusual jersey numbers

It doesn’t take too much guesswork to figure out the story behind the most prominent jersey number on the Penguins.

Sidney Crosby was born on August 7, 1987: 8/7/87. His superstition regarding the number even carries over to his contract, which has an annual $8.7 million cap hit.

But on a team full of unorthodox jersey numbers — from Jake Guentzel’s 59, to Patric Hornqvist’s 72 and Carl Hagelin’s 62 — the stories on why players wear the digits they do vary from case to case. Sometimes, there’s a story behind it. In other cases, though, it’s just a number they were handed one day.

Most of the Penguins’ younger players fall into the latter camp. Guentzel got 59 when he arrived at his first…