Crosby's brilliance evident in every bit of Penguins beating Bruins, 6-5

BOSTON -- The NHL on Thursday announced its first 32 All-Stars, naming one player from each team.

In a surprise to exactly no one, Sidney Crosby was selected to represent the Penguins next month in Toronto. It's the 10th such honor of his career, surpassing Jaromir Jagr's nine for second-most in franchise history. Only Mario Lemieux had more, at 13.

Of course, right after that selection was announced, Crosby went out and reminded everyone why he keeps climbing every historical ladder in sight, with a game-winning goal in the third period of a 6-5 victory over the Bruins here at TD Garden, plus primary assists on two others earlier on the night, plus so much more.

It's the little defensive things Crosby did that won't show up on a scoresheet --  especially when the stakes are at their highest -- that makes him such a special player. He's the best of both worlds.

Crosby's goal came in the third at 11:19. After the Penguins had squandered a 5-2 lead they built on goals from Drew O'Connor, Ryan Graves, Jake Guentzel, Lars Eller and Jeff Carter, Crosby put them back on top. He won an offensive zone faceoff back to Erik Karlsson, who fed it right back to Crosby. Crosby promptly sniped it past Jeremy Swayman from the top of the left circle:

"I was just trying to get it through," Crosby said afterward. "Coming off the (previous) power play, we got scored on, and we wanted to get that momentum back. It was a big play by Carts to draw (the penalty) and I just tried to get it through. I think it might have hit their D and deflected in."

It did. Off Hampus Lindholm.

That faceoff win, by the way, is one of those little parts of Crosby's game that isn't getting enough credit, probably because it's being overshadowed by his offensive production. Last month, I wrote about what's behind his crazy-good faceoff performance this season. At the time it was 59.6%, already surpassing his previous career high of 55.9% set in 2009-10. Since then, he's only gotten stronger. He went 16-6 (72.7%) to bring his season rate to 61.1%. He's winning draws on the power play, specifically, at a rate of 67.3%, and that's been directly responsible for some of the Penguins' goals on the man-advantage.

That goal alone made Crosby the game's top performer. He had already directly set up the Penguins' second and third goals of the game from Graves and Guentzel respectively. No player had a bigger impact on the game's wild offensive swings. 

The history kept coming, too. That goal made for Crosby's 173rd career three-point game, moving him past his childhood idol Steve Yzerman for the seventh-most three-point games in NHL history:

NHL

But Crosby wasn't done, because neither were the Bruins. With 8:41 left in the third period, there was ample time for the Bruins to push for a tying goal. And with Swayman pulled in favor of the extra attacker with a whopping 2:40 remaining, Boston had that six-on-five advantage for a lot of time.

With 1:56 left, Brad Marchand took a wrist shot which Crosby dropped and blocked before getting the puck to Guentzel, allowing the Penguins to clear the puck out of their end:

Then with under 40 seconds left, Kris Letang cleared the puck out of the Penguins' end and sent it the length of the ice, which would have been icing. Crosby was a step or two behind Lindholm when the race for the puck started. Crosby beat Lindholm to negate the icing and then protected the puck himself, effectively killing roughly 20 seconds off the clock that could have been the difference had the icing been called and play returned to the Penguins' end:

"You do what you have to do and take care of your own guy, your own area," Crosby said of that extended six-on-five stretch the Bruins had. "You trust the other guy is going to do the same. It's a hectic time when you're in a game like that. But when you're in that position, you want to get it done and find a way to close."

There's no way to clock exactly how fast Crosby was moving there, but the NHL's player tracking data this season shows that Crosby hasn't exactly slowed at age 36. His top speed this season is 22.88 miles per hour, in the 87th percentile for forwards and a few steps faster than the league-average for forwards of 21.97 miles per hour. He's hit that 22-mile per hour mark four times this season when the league average for forwards is just one such burst.

It's moments like that in the third period that have Mike Sullivan refer to Crosby as "the heartbeat of our team."

"He's the guy that is the standard-bearer," Sullivan continued. "When the stakes are high, I think that's when he's at his best. He does a lot of the little things that help us win. The offense speaks for itself and his ability to score goals and create for his linemates. But a lot of the little things that he does on the defensive side, whether it's winning faceoffs, blocking the shot, or negating an icing in the in the five-on-six, things like that add up to winning. He leads the charge there for our team."

Sullivan said the biggest thing for him that he liked from Crosby was just the way he led the response earlier in the third period after Marchand's tying short-handed goal.

"The pushback I thought was really good," Sullivan said. "Then the power play gets an opportunity and we score. Those are the things for me that I think are huge opportunities for us to grow as a team."

It'll be Crosby leading the way through that growth as he continues to set the example for his teammates on both sides of the puck, like the All-Star he's been seemingly forever.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at TD Garden:

1. Sidney Crosby, Penguins C
2. Brad Marchand, Bruins LW
3. David Pastrnak, Bruins RW

THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Penguins: None

• Bruins: None

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Drew O'Connor - Lars Eller - Valtteri Puustinen
Jansen Harkins - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter

Marcus Pettersson - Kris Letang
P.O Joseph - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves - Chad Ruhwedel

And for Jim Montgomery's Bruins:

Pavel Zacha - Morgan Geekie - David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand - Charlie Coyle - Jake DeBrusk
James van Riemsdyk - Trent Frederic - Danton Heinen
John Beecher - Georgii Merkulov - Oskar Steen

Matt Grzelcyk - Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm - Brandon Carlo
Mason Lohrei - Kevin Shattenkirk

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins have a scheduled day off Friday. They'll be back in action Saturday with a 7:08 p.m. game against the Sabres at PPG Paints Arena.

THE FEED

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