Don’t look now but the NHL has a familiar face back on top of the points race.
Sidney Crosby by all accounts is having a down year, but as my Hockeybuzz colleague Tim Chiasson points out, he is still the best in the business.
That is quite an impressive feat.
Over the course of time Crosby has routinely outscored the best in the game. I decided to compare Sidney Crosby’s points per game average against the top ten scorers combined average in each season of his career. It is worth mentioning that every season except for 2007-08, 2010-11, and 2011-12 Crosby’s numbers are included in the top ten average.
Even with Crosby’s numbers artificially boosting the top ten scorers in most years he still outperforms the best in the NHL offensively by a decent margin on a regular basis.
The depressing part of the chart is that 2010-12 section where we lost his peak years to concussion related ailments. He was unbelievable during that stretch of time when he was able to play.
As we know goal scoring in the NHL is down. Power play opportunities and scoring are also down. This can help explain why the chart starts to trend downwards.
There is also another factor at play as it pertains to Crosby. Sidney Crosby is seeing the fewest amount of ice time in his career right now aside from the very small sample size he played in 2011-12 when coming back from his concussion.
Crosby is down almost two minutes per game from last season. So far this year Crosby has played in 67 games which means he has missed out on 134 minutes when compared to last year’s rate of ice time (all situations).
Crosby has a points per 60 this year of 3.36 (all situations) which would give him an additional 8 points on the year if his ice time was at his 2013-14 level.
Even with the cut in ice time Crosby has as good of a chance as any other player to take home the Art Ross Trophy this season. If he does it will add to this insane total for the Penguins franchise
Crosby also has a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 56.0% this year. Elite level stuff which is par for the course when talking about 87.
*Those Michael Therrien teams really weren’t that good*
So on the surface it looks like Crosby is having a “down year” but there are multiple variables at play suppressing his overall point totals as described above, including age regression.
However, Sidney Crosby is still a boss and the best player in hockey.
Thanks for reading!
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