Concerning Sydney Crosby

Ask a causal hockey fan who the best hockey player in the world is, and you are likely to get a variety of answers. Based on the fan's locality, the answer could be Alex Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews, or even a goalie, like Henrik Lundqvist. The most common answer, and the correct one, is Sidney Crosby, center for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Crosby was considered a once-in-a-generation talent when he entered the NHL draft at the age of 18 in 2005. Since 2005, he has established himself as the best player in the world, the face of the NHL, and the clear superior to his chief rival, Alex Ovechkin. 

         

So what makes Crosby so dominant? The short answer is that he is one of the most well rounded players in the league. While he can shoot as well as anyone, and has a legendary backhand, he is also excellent at distributing the puck and creating scoring chances for his line mates. Since he entered the NHL, 65% of his points have come on assists or secondary assists. Players tend to excel statistically when playing with Crosby. His line mates have an average 56% increase in points per 60 minutes when playing with Crosby compared to playing without him. He has the ability to lift mediocre players into great seasons, for instance last year when Chris Kunitz scored 35 goals en route to 68 points, both career highs, and made the Canadian olympic team. That Kunitz was able to accomplish these feats at the age of 34 is a credit to him, but also a demonstration of how Crosby can lift his line mates to a higher level of play. Crosby is also a prolific goal scorer. Last season he scored 36 goals, 7th highest in the league and 3rd amongst centers. Last season, in fact, was one of the best individual seasons ever by an NHL player. Crosby scored 104 points, which by itself is not that impressive. However, one must examine the defensive strength of the entire league. The next highest point-getter in the league was Ryan Getzlaf of Anaheim with 87 points. Last season marked the first time that a player scored over 100 points in a season in which no other player scored more than 90. In one of the most defensively tough seasons in the history of the NHL, Sidney Crosby still managed to score over 100 points, making his 2013-2014 season one of the best individual seasons in NHL history. 

         The main criticism of Sidney Crosby stems from his team's lack of recent success in the playoffs. Since winning the Stanley Cup in 2009 in an epic 7 game series over the Detroit Red Wings, the Penguins have not won a game past the second round of the playoffs (they made the conference finals in 2012-2013 but were swept by the Bruins). However, ascribing team success to one player is an impossibility, especially in hockey, where any player except the goalie can only directly influence a game's outcome for about 20 minutes at the most. However, Crosby's numbers have dropped in the playoffs. In last year's playoffs, after his historically great regular season, Crosby only scored 9 points in 13 games, less than a point a game. In 2012, Crosby scored 15 points in 14 playoff games, but failed to record a single point in the Penguin's 4 game loss to the Boston Bruins. Why do Crosby's numbers decrease in the playoffs? The simple answer is that he is playing better teams. Teams that make the playoffs often have strong defense and coaching, and they realize that the way to stop the Penguins is to shut down Crosby. He consistently faces the opposing team's top defensive pairing, and they focus on stopping Crosby specifically from scoring. Without consistent depth behind Crosby and second line center Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins lack the ability to take opposing team's defensive focus away from Sidney Crosby. Crosby's numbers suffer as a result, and the strategy often works against the Penguins as a team. Despite this phenomenon, the playoffs are too small a sample size to judge a player's effectiveness by. Crosby has consistently shown himself to be a dominant offensive player in the regular season, which is a much larger sample size. Looking at Crosby's career as a whole reveals him to be the best player in the league, but cherry picking a few games at the end of every year can distort the accurate image of his accomplishments. 

     Sidney Crosby is in the prime of his career right now, and has already accomplished a great deal. He is a 2 time Art Ross (scoring title) and Hart Trophy (MVP) winner, a 4 time All-Star game participant, and a 3 time NHL first-All star team winner. He has set records for being the youngest player ever to record 200 points, record 2 consecutive 100 point seasons, start an All-Star game, win Art Ross Trophy, win the Lester B. Pearson award (peer MVP), be named to the First All-Star team, lead the NHL playoffs in scoring, and captain a Stanley Cup Trophy winner. He has already had one of the best careers in the history of the NHL, and is at most halfway done playing hockey. He is head and shoulders above any other player in the NHL right now.

by Jack Dyro

Fisher Hall

2016 Mechanical Engineering