Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Calgary Flames 4-0 on Friday night.
Congratulations to Marc-Andre Fleury who broke the franchise record for shutouts in a season with his eighth.
Crosby had two goals and an assist. For some this means he is "back". Is he "back"?
Crosby last night: "It felt nice to get rewarded." Great quote, there wasn't much else he could do during the slump. Puck just didn't go in.
— Jesse Marshall (@jmarshfof) February 7, 2015
I agree with Jesse, that is a great quote. Crosby is eluding to his process being correct and his tangible rewards just not coming. Trust the process, it will always win out over time.
However, the over time part is the key because in the playoffs you don't always have that time.
This is why I will always maintain that a lot more luck goes into winning a Stanley Cup than people realize. Great players can play great without tangible reward, but in a playoff setting it may be too late by the time the tangible rewards start to come.
A player's process can be correct, but the timing of tangible rewards is normally out their control. Sometimes you just have to hope the timing lines up.
It is also why you need playable depth in case the timing doesn't line up and it is exactly what the Penguins haven't had in recent memory.
Let's take a look at Crosby's sample size in all even strength situations. *Originally I had said all situations, I meant all even strength situations*
A few things about the information here.
His goals per 60 has declined from a few years ago and is slightly down from even last year. This is the sad reality of a hockey player aging. Sidney Crosby is now 27 years old and the numbers support that his best goal scoring days are behind him. Don't be too alarmed though, he can still be an excellent player (and score great goals like last night), just don't expect a 45-50 goal season.
The following visual is from Adam Gretz of CBS Sports
You can see goal scoring peaks happen earlier than most people probably think it does.
If you recall last year Sidney Crosby won the Art Ross Trophy as well as the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player. They were well deserved honors.
And it will be this year when he more than likely wins both trophies again.
His assists per 60 minutes is way above last year's rate and he just got a pretty skilled winger in David Perron to play on his line/power play. Perron is the most talented player Sid has played with since Marian Hossa. Chris Kunitz is also still producing at the same rate he always has been.
That line is looking better and better with each game and the tangible results will eventually start pouring in.
Since the trade on Jan. 2, David Perron is operating at a 55.3 CF% with 2.1 points/60. He's had 36 individual scoring chances in that time.
— Jesse Marshall (@jmarshfof) February 7, 2015
Sidney Crosby's points per 60 is up from last year.
Points are points whether they are goals or assists. It means offense for the team is being generated.
Just remember when focusing on goal slumps you need to understand it happens to EVERYBODY. No player is immune. Not your average third liner and not even your generational talents.
The last column in the chart from above is his Fenwick per 60 minutes. You will see his F/60 is also better than last year's Hart Trophy season. Also take notice of the two seasons where his F/60 were sky high. They were in very small samples due to his concussion/broken jaw and could be considered an outlier.
Here is an amazing stat about Crosby. In the past year and a half (2013-15) he has played in 128 games.
The previous 3 seasons (2010-13) he only played in 99.
Those three seasons were right where his statistical prime should have been. The cold reality is that we may have lost out on seeing Sidney Crosby in apex form because of David Steckel and a fluke Brooks Orpik shot to the jaw. Sad but true.
Here is a positive sign for Crosby's 2014-15 season moving forward. He has a lower PDO than normal. Now in most cases we will use a PDO of 1000 as the mean, but for somebody with a career as long as Crosby's we can use his larger sample size (2007-present) to see what his regular numbers are. For his career Crosby has an amazing PDO of 1026. He is currently below that average and sits at 1018. It isn't way below his career mark but considering he has been "slumping" he could be just as prone to jump way above it for a stretch of time.
For all the slump talk about Crosby he is two points away from the league lead in scoring while playing in four less games.
So is Crosby "back"?
Well, he still drives possession at a high clip and from an offensive standpoint he is producing at a better rate than he did in his Hart Trophy performance of last year.
Sidney Crosby never left and the tangible results are going to start piling up again.
Always trust the process.
Thanks for reading!
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