EDMONTON, Alberta -- Pity poor Ryan Strome.
A couple minutes into overtime Tuesday night at Rogers Place, and the Oilers' third-line center, owner of zero goals and zero assists, had a chance to go from zero to hero. He'd just dashed up the left edge of the Pittsburgh zone, danced around Phil Kessel and darted to the inside for a dangerous chance ... that was denied by Matt Murray.
Within a minute, he'd be poster-ized.
Or is that statue-ized?
Part of what makes three-on-three hockey a blast is the proliferation of forwards on the ice trying -- that's trying -- to play defense. It opens up all kinds of possibilities for the player with the puck, particularly when they're alert enough to glance up and recognize precisely that. Because then, the puck-carrier can try pretty much anything and look like ... you know, Sidney Crosby.
Which Strome nearly did.
Funny thing, though ...
"I had no idea it was a forward."
This was Crosby, explaining to me that, a half-minute later, he hadn't recognized Strome as a forward when coming out of the corner and ... and ... oh, just watch:
Don't scroll down, my friends. Not yet.
Take the hand off the mouse, the thumb off the phone. Watch it again. And again. And again.
OK, now, shed a tear for No. 18 in the Edmonton PennDOT-model orange sweater. Because that's Strome up there, stuck on a long shift after his hollow bid for heroics at the other end, tailing Crosby from the blue line back -- this after a Jack Johnson drop pass just inside the blue line, then getting ripped apart like a rusty croquet wicket, then left flailing at a ghost before Crosby continues on to backhand a shot by Cam Talbot's catching glove.
So, no idea it was a forward?
"Not at all," Crosby replied to my second attempt. "I wouldn't lie to you."
Ha! It's not as if extra romanticism was required!
I mean, here's the world's best player basically making a mockery of any and all world's-best-player debates, right?
In Toronto, a 10-goal spurt for Auston Matthews had the locals hyperventilating with comparisons to Connor MacDavid, so Crosby struts in and out with an extraordinary two-way effort in a 3-0 shutout. After which Crosby thoroughly downplayed any added dimension involving Matthews, to the extreme that he'd barely acknowledge it in his replies to reporters' repeated questions.
And here, with the real McDavid being the real heir apparent to the debated crown -- Matthews isn't his peer in anything but age -- all Crosby did was redirect the game's icebreaking goal on a familiar power-play feed from Kris Letang ...
... and seize every shared shift with McDavid to ensure he never got those unparalleled jets going through the neutral zone ...
... and then finish it off in the grandest style.
I take a lot of pride in breaking plays down, but there isn't much to offer about this latest masterpiece beyond superlatives: He spun and twirled, commanding the puck while Johnson and Derick Brassard did little more than try to keep out of his way. When those two saw he was digging in to stay low, they drifted back high. Along with them went Darnell Nurse, Edmonton's only defenseman on the ice, and Strome was left solo to be savaged.
Where did this one rank among Crosby's finest?
That'll come up a lot in the coming 24 hours, I'm guessing, and I don't mean to dampen this, but his actual signature goal remains a certain other one scored out here in Western Canada.
As for his own ranking ...
"I don't know," Crosby began an answer to that question. "It's nice to see it go in. It was nice to get the first one. Nice to see Horny chip in with a couple, too."
He and Patric Hornqvist both scored their first two goals of the season.
"We've had some good looks to start the year, so it was nice for us to get a couple for each of us."
OK, so he's got no interest in ranking.
Anyone?
“You guys all say that McDavid’s better than him, and then he has the puck the whole game and finishes off like that," Hornqvist would characteristically snarl at a bank of mostly Edmonton-based reporters. "That’s why he’s the best player in the world. I think he showed tonight who is the best player in the world. He always shows up when you guys say he's not the best anymore and all that. Then he comes in and does that. Probably the nicest goal through his whole career. It says a lot.”
Yowza.
How about the head coach?
Mike Sullivan's counterpart had something to say, too, no doubt in part to support Strome, who wasn't available for comment.
“Sid did what Sid does to a lot of players, took advantage of a forward down low in a three-on-three situation and he’s as good a player on his backhand as there is in the league,” Todd McLellan said. “He’s patient and he held on to it long enough to beat Talbs.”
Catch that reference to the 'forward down low?'
That's going to bat for Strome.
"Beautiful play. Beautiful goal," McDavid would say. "Not much you can do there “
Also going to bat for Strome.
Maybe, if the Penguins should someday model their Crosby statue after the Mario Lemieux one -- with stumbling Islanders in his wake -- McLellan and McDavid can make it to the unveiling. Strome will already be there, dressed in bronze.
