Crosby brilliant again (Sabres)

Sabres

Crosby brilliant again

By Ryan Wilson

Nov 19, 2016 • 11:52 am

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The Penguins are back in the win column after Wednesday's debacle. They scraped by the New York Islanders by a score of 3-2 in overtime.

Sidney Crosby is tremendous to watch right now. His hot start to the year continues. He has 11 goals in 11 games and while keeping a goal per game pace in 2016-17 is impossible I do believe he could sniff that 50 goal mark this year. He's shooting an absurd 27.5% so far this year, but he does have a career average of 14.5% so the drop off won't be as significant as some other players. During his 2010-11 season he had cut short he was at 19.9% through 41 games. Sid has yet to have a three point game this year and tonight against Buffalo seems to be a prime candidate to snap that.

His pass in overtime was sublime

The deke was nice, but the vision and timing of the pass is why he is who he is. Great play by Letang to sneak around the net knowing that the world's best player would find him. You'll also notice Evgeni Malkin creating a wonderful screen so Halak couldn't see the puck get across to Letang. It hasn't happened often since three on three overtime was created, but we finally received a glimpse of Crosby, Malkin, and Letang all on the ice at the same time. The end result seems very appropriate.

Crosby also had a goal and the angle he scored at could draw some comparisons to some of Mario's goal line goals.

Enjoy the ride. When Sidney Crosby is at his best there is no better show in all of hockey.

Evgeni Malkin needs to clean up the number of penalties he is taking. That goes without saying. Those are obvious mistakes that are easily pointed out. In his last three games he has taken 12 minutes in minors. He is still playing great hockey. In those three games he has been on the ice for 55 shot attempts for at even-strength and only 34 against. That is a 61.8% clip. If Geno is going to drive play like that everything else will fall into place. It always does.

Matt Murray has allowed two goals or fewer in five of his six starts this season (that includes leaving Washington early). He will be on the bench tonight in Buffalo in favor of Fleury and that is the right move for a back to back. It becomes more interesting next week as the Penguins play on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Will Murray get all three? How will the split go?

Phil Kessel is an assist machine this year. He picked up another two last night and now has a team leading 11.

I didn't forget about you, Kris Letang. The Penguins #1 defenseman is doing great things again this year. He has 11 points in 12 games and continues to drive play. With Letang on the ice the Penguins are a 52.7% possession team at even-strength and without him they are 49.4%. The good news is that Letang plays all the time so he's on the ice a lot. When he and Crosby are on the ice together the Penguins control 59.9% of the action.

Here is a look at Buffalo's lineup

The Jack Eichel injury was a crappy way to start the season for the Sabres, but even with him in the lineup this roster has a long way to go. They have done nothing to address their defense corp. and Rasmus Ristolainen is forced to play in an elevated role that he probably isn't quite ready for.

It doesn't get much easier than getting Buffalo on the second half of a back to back.

Will it be stat night? Tonight seems as good of a nigh as any.

****

We finally go around to recording a new podcast. Today's podcast discusses some early season surprises. You can find that here.

Cameron was able to chat with Matt Larkin of The Hockey News about suspensions and how the league has handled them. You can find that here

Thanks for reading!

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