TAMPA, Fla. — Sidney Crosby will spend the next few days in Tampa for the NHL All-Star Game and its many festivities.
The way Crosby’s going, it won’t feel like 48 hours. Maybe more like a couple of years with as slow as the game looks to him right now.
For someone who didn’t think he deserved to participate in this event, Crosby will arrive at Amalie Arena as the NHL’s hottest player, with a league-high 20 points since Jan. 1 and riding a nine-game point streak.
“When he gets hot, he gets hot, and he gets streaky,” Conor Sheary said. “That’s what he’s doing right now.”
How Crosby has been doing that has been fascinating — and downright fun — to watch.
Same as it is for elite athletes across any sport, the game is in slow motion right now for Crosby. If he was batting, the baseball would look like a cantaloupe, the basketball hoop like a baby pool.
There was no better example of this recently than Thursday night when Crosby set up Brian Dumoulin for what had to be the easiest goal of the defenseman’s lifetime.
Crosby waited for the puck while taking stock of what Dumoulin was doing and figuring out his window of opportunity, eventually choosing the perfect time and right pace to one-touch the puck to Dumoulin, a play so pretty it looked like a pass-back machine or rubber bumpers were involved.
“I think you feel more confident,” Crosby said of the feeling he gets in runs such as the one he’s currently on. “You see things a little bit more. When it’s going like that, it’s fun to play.
“You tend to think about the ones you miss or could have had more than the ones you convert on, but a goal like that, where you see a few passes connect, they don’t happen too often. You enjoy them when you get them. It’s fun to play hockey that way.”
Same when you’re watching it.
Even if you’re Penguins coach Mike Sullivan. Actually, especially if you’re Sullivan, who has seen his captain locked into similar grooves a time or two before, his ability to slow the game down in his head glaringly obvious.
“I think that’s what makes elite athletes what they are in any instinctive game — their ability to process the game in such a fashion that they anticipate plays before they occur,” Sullivan said. “That allows them to take advantage of windows of opportunity that might present themselves. I think Sid’s one of those elite guys.”
But it’s not just anticipation, although you won’t find a player more studious over the nuts and bolts of hockey than the iPad-watching Crosby. It’s physical gifts such as puck control or winning battles in the corner or something as simple as how he shoots the puck.
Sheary has played with Crosby long enough to know when things might be a little different, when Crosby’s playing like this and a noticeable threat on every shift.
What does he see at times like these?
“The obvious thing is when he has the puck in the offensive zone, he’s almost playing keep-away by himself,” Sheary said. “Holding defenders off, and he’s so strong on his skates. He protects the puck so well that he creates opportunities for all of his linemates.”
Some of the numbers that Crosby has piled up while sitting one goal away from 400 for his career and passing Jaromir Jagr for second place on the Penguins all-time scoring list are crazy-good:
Crosby currently has the NHL’s longest active assist and point streaks at nine games.
In that time, he has produced three goals and 19 points.
Six of those nine have been multi-point efforts, including a run of five in a row.
Three of the nine have been three- or four-point performances.
“He’s playing unreal,” Dominik Simon said. “Obviously he’s our best player. If he’s doing well, you know it’s great for us.”
On Jan. 1, through 40 games, Crosby was 32nd in the NHL with 35 points. After three assists Thursdady against the Minnesota Wild, only eight players have more than Crosby’s 55 points.
If this keeps up, by early February, there’s a good chance Crosby could move into the top five, although good luck getting him to care about his stats.
“It just means that pucks are going in,” Crosby said. “You want that to continue. Sometimes, they don’t always go in as easy. For now, they’re going in. Hopefully, this momentum can continue here.”
Letang: ‘I thought it would be better’
Kris Letang offered a frank assessment of his semi-rough start to the season earlier this week.
“I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it’s been,” Letang said.
Funny thing about Letang: He has taken some heat for how he has played through 48 games, certainly at least some of it justified. But we’re also talking about a defenseman who missed eight months because of serious neck surgery, who has produced 28 points in 48 games and who will participate in the NHL All-Star Game.
If you’re willing to ignore the eye test, on the surface, that sounds like a Masterton Trophy nomination, but there’s probably not a person in Pittsburgh — including Letang — who would say he has been the best version of himself.
The good news is that Letang seemingly has started to gain confidence. It’s not a finished product, mind you. There are still the occasional ill-timed pinches and questionable decisions with puck, but there has been more good than bad over the past little while.
“It’s tough,” Letang said. “Eight months without playing, and I got right back into it. I had only about a week of skating in the summer to get back into it. Training camp, I thought it would be better. I’m still working on it, and I’ll get there when it counts.”
Sports@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1621.
First Published: January 26, 2018, 2:44 p.m.
