When Sidney Crosby’s season ended last year after 41 games, he was steamrolling the league in scoring with 66 points including 32 goals, all league leading marks. With Sid returning to action tonight against the Islanders he’s spotted the rest of the league around 20 games to get all the points they could muster before he gets back at it.
Considering that Crosby was scoring points at a 1.6 points per game pace last season, catching up to Phil Kessel and his 29 points and 15 goals doesn’t seem like it’s too far out of reach but looks can be deceiving. Through 21 games last year, the same number Kessel has played this year, Crosby had 33 points showing remarkable consistency with what his final numbers ended up being.
If Kessel is able to keep up the same kind of scoring pace this year, he’d finish the year with more than 110 points. Crosby need to score nearly two points per game all season in order to get into the scoring race and challenge Kessel or Claude Giroux or any of the other guys hovering close to Kessel’s league leading numbers.
If Crosby comes back and plays just like how he did last year before getting hurt, the scoring race could get even more exciting as the season winds down with Crosby closing in on the leaders. If he can manage to do that, Crosby will manage to pull down even more award hardware than we’re used to seeing with potential Hart, Art Ross, Rocket Richard, and Masterton trophies to aim for. Not that Crosby needs that kind of myth building but that would make for a remarkable year.
First things first for Sid: He’s got to score to get the ball rolling.