We made the list, checked it twice and well, it was hard to believe.
Of the 29 NHL forwards who had played as least 500 minutes at five-on-five entering Saturday’s final pre-Christmas matches, just four had scored fewer than four goals at full and equal strength.
Arizona’s Max Domi had one. Kings rookie winger Alex Iafallo had two. Florida’s Aleksander Barkov had scored three.
And so had Sidney Crosby.
The generation’s greatest player scored 26 goals in 1,111:18 of five-on-five last year in leading the Penguins to their second consecutive Stanley Cup — one for every 42:45. But this year, No. 87 has three goals in 526:42, equating to one every 175:34.
And the Penguins were on the outside looking in on the playoffs before Saturday’s pucks were dropped.
The cap might be catching up to the Penguins, just as quickly as the rest of the league. But more to the point, the grind of back-to-back nine-month seasons (a month shorter than that last year due to the World Cup) seems to be extracting its pound of flesh from Penguins who are merely mortal.
Hard to believe, perhaps, but that includes Crosby, who, including the postseason and the international tournament (but excluding exhibition matches), had played 245 games before stepping onto the ice Saturday against Anaheim.
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And that means 245 games in the spotlight, during, before and after each one of them. The demands on Crosby never wane, and just like Wayne Gretzky (who operated in a much simpler time), Sid could not be more gracious in accommodating waves of interrogation.
The Penguins have structural issues. Matt Murray, perhaps coincidentally, hasn’t quite been the same without Marc-Andre Fleury behind or beside him to provide security. The team’s depth has been pared. And there is the inescapable matter of fatigue, both physical and emotional.
Pittsburgh gets its bye from Jan. 8-12, the same week the Rangers, Islanders, Devils and Flyers are also on hiatus. So perhaps that will refresh the Penguins. And perhaps that will refresh Crosby, currently on a list that defies belief.
I don’t mean to be a Grinch about this, but the NHL is aware that the *Greatest Moment as voted by the fans on its website poll is kind of bogus, correct?
Because the Mario Lemieux five-goals-five-ways-achievement against the Devils in Pittsburgh on Dec. 31, 1988, in which No. 66 scored at even-strength, on the power play, on the penalty kill and on a penalty shot, was completed with a shot into an empty net that indeed crossed the goal line after time had expired.
This is not an urban myth. I was there, doing the radio color for the Devils. There wasn’t even a question about it. The grainy tapes of the moment that are available are not synched with a game clock, but you can see that Lemieux doesn’t even acknowledge scoring his fifth goal of the game.
And I can tell you that the Devils had no idea the goal counted until they got a glimpse of the postgame score sheet and players who had been on the ice noted, none too happily, that they had been charged with an extra minus on the historic *empty-netter in what went down in *history as an 8-6 defeat.
*Greatest Moment, indeed.
I believe that had Charles Wang put as much time and energy into lobbying for construction of a new arena on the Coliseum’s parking lot as he did into attempting to fulfill his grandiose vision of his Lighthouse that was DOA, years of drama would have been avoided and the Islanders would have had their state-of-the-art building a long time ago without ever having to leave.
Holiday Snapshot — Elite Eight: 1. Tampa Bay; 2. Nashville; 3. Washington; 4. Winnipeg; 5. Los Angeles; 6. Vegas; 7. Columbus; 8. Devils.
Memo to Mr. Eugene Melnyk: Your Senators play the most boring style of hockey in the NHL. It is tolerable only when you win, and, more to the point, only when you win in the playoffs. Winning 11 of 33 games doesn’t quite qualify, and wouldn’t even if the team had a new arena in, say, Barbados.
So I was about to suggest the leaky Islanders might want to check out Jimmy Howard, when the sleuth in me noticed the 33-year-old Detroit netminder with a cap hit of $5.292 million through next year ranks 18th in overall save percentage (.907) of the 21 goalies who have played at least 25 games.
Howard ranks 21st in five-on-five save percentage (.918) of the 30 goalies with at least 800 minutes, with Thomas Greiss dead last under those specs (.898) but, interestingly enough, with Jaro Halak fifth (.932).
There are, cleaning out the naturalstattrick.com portion of the show, 66 forwards who had played 400 minutes at five-on-five entering Saturday. Nineteen had scored two or fewer goals, including Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Dylan Larkin, Wayne Simmonds and J.T. Miller.
You bet I could see Derick Brassard energizing the Penguins and thriving in Pittsburgh, but Columbus Redux for Big Game Brass, not so much.
In the time it took you to read this piece, Henrik Lundqvist made 10 more saves.